Meta boosts India fact-checking programme with PTI partnership

Meta is expanding their third-party fact-checking program in India to include Press Trust of India (PTI), a dedicated fact-checking unit within the newswire’s editorial department. The partnership will enable PTI to identify, review and rate content as misinformation across Meta platforms.

To fight the spread of misinformation and provide people with more reliable information, Meta has partnered with independent third-party fact-checkers that are certified through the non-partisan International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) who identify, review and rate viral misinformation across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

With this partnership with PTI, Meta now has 12 fact-checking partners in India, making it the country with the most third-party fact-checking partners globally across Meta. Their Indian language coverage stands at 16 through their existing fact-checking partners to include Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Urdu, Punjabi, Assamese, Manipuri/ Meitei, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Kashmiri, Bhojpuri, Oriya and Nepali, besides English.

"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 a press statement from Meta.

"Since 2016, our fact-checking program has expanded to include nearly 100 organizations globally. The focus of the program is to address viral misinformation – particularly clear hoaxes that have no basis in fact. Fact-checking partners prioritize provably false claims that are timely, trending and consequential," the statement further said.