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WhatsApp Offers $50,000 Research Grant To Curb Fake News

To control the spread of fake news, WhatsApp has introduced a research awards program. It offers financial awards up to $50,000 per research proposal.

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Jagrati Rakheja
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To control the spread of fake news, WhatsApp has recently introduced a research awards program. Through this program, WhatsApp will provide a set of awards to various researchers who would be interested in investigating about the fake news problem on the messaging app. Along with uncovering of issues in encrypted systems. The awards program will give financial support to researchers who conduct independent research proposal.

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WhatsApp aims to take guidance from researchers in nations where the Facebook-owned messaging app is a major medium of communication. The countries that predominantly use the messaging app include India, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, etc.

In order to, supplement, WhatsApp offers financial awards up to $50,000 (roughly Rs. 34.5 lakh) per research proposal. This will permit the investigators to extend and strengthen their research over the present dominating issues with the free messaging app.

Through this initiative, WhatsApp is looking forward to fighting the fake news battle. Especially, election-related news together with information that gets viral and digital literacy.

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The above solution came into the picture after the series of lynchings that occurred due to the viral of misinformation and fake news.

Whatsapp: Suspicious Link Detection Feature

According to a report by WA Beta Info, the free messaging app is working on a suspicious link detection feature. The feature will be launched in WhatsApp’s latest version.

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The Suspicious Link Detection Feature would facilitate users to identify whether the received or sent link is reliable.

Further, the report stated that when a person receives a link, the Facebook-owned free messaging app will analyze the link sent in the message to detect its authenticity.

Thus, if a link is discovered as suspicious, it will be shown with a red tag. If one tries to open the given link, a pop-up warning window will be displayed. The feature will safeguard WhatsApp users from any phishing website that can embezzle a user's personal data.

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