Meta adds 11th fact-checker partner in India

Meta has announced the expansion of its third-party fact-checking program in India with its 11th partner, NewsMeter, a fact checker primarily focused on the Southern states in the country. 

 

With this, Meta aims to connect people with accurate and verified information and enhance Meta’s fact-checking capabilities in regional Indian languages including Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Tamil. 

 

In addition, to the four south Indian languages, the partners also fact check information in Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Assamese, Kashmiri, Bhojpuri, Oriya and Nepali.

 

Currently, Meta is working with ten partners including India Today Group, Vishvas News (Jagran), Factly, Newsmobile, Fact Crescendo, BOOM Live, AFP, Quint, NewsChecker and the Healthy Indian Project. 

 

To help address the industry-wide issue of misinformation online, Meta has also associated with the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) to fund a fact-checking news fellowship program designed exclusively for Indian news organisations. 

 

Manish Chopra, director and head of partnerships, India, Meta, said, “We are committed to combating the spread of misinformation and have built the largest global fact-checking network. The partnership with NewsMeter is an important step in enabling us to curb misinformation in regional Indian languages across Facebook and Instagram.”