Meta expands 3rd party fact-checking programme in India, adds NewsMeter

Meta on Tuesday announced that it is expanding its third-party fact-checking programme in India to include NewsMeter, a fact checker primarily focused on the southern states in the country.

With this partnership, Meta will have 11 fact-checking partners in India, making it the country with the most number of third party fact checking partners globally. In addition, Meta has also expanded its Indian language coverage from 11 to 15 through its existing fact-checking partners to include Kashmiri, Bhojpuri, Oriya, and Nepali.

The partnership will help connect people to accurate and verified information and enhance Meta’s fact-checking capabilities in regional Indian languages including Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, and Tamil, said the company in a statement.

Globally, Meta works with more than 80 fact-checking partners that review and rate content in over 60 languages. All of Meta’s fact-checking partners have been certified through the independent, non-partisan International Fact-Checking Network.

Manish Chopra, director, and head of partnerships, India at 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.”

"Each time a fact-checker rates a piece of content as false, altered or partly false, we reduce its distribution so that fewer people see it. We notify people who try to share the content – or who previously shared it – that the information was rated by a fact-checker, and we add a warning label that links to the fact-checker’s article with more information about the claim," said the company.

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