Meta partners with NewsMeter to expand fact-checking programme in India

Globally, Meta has more than 80 fact-checking partners that review and rate content in over 60 languages.

Meta on July 26 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. This comes at a time when globally Meta’s Facebook has been in the news for shifting resources for news tab to build its creator economy.

The partnership with NewsMeter is aimed at providing accurate and verified information and enhance Meta’s fact-checking capabilities in regional Indian languages including Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, and Tamil. Meta is also expanding its Indian language coverage from 11 to 15 through its existing fact-checking partners to include Kashmiri, Bhojpuri, Oriya, and Nepali.

Globally, Meta has 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. With this partnership, Meta will have 11 fact-checking partners in India, which is the most number of third-party fact-checking partners globally for the company.

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," the company said in its statement.

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