Google’s Jigsaw subsidiary launch a new anti-misinformation project in India, aim at preventing misleading information that has blame for inciting violence, a top executive said.
The initiative will use “prebunking” videos design to counter false claims before they become widespread circulate on the company’s YouTube platform and other social media sites.
Google’s efforts to challenge the spread of misinformation mark a contrast with rival Twitter which is cutting its trust and safety teams, despite new owner Elon Musk saying it will not become a “free-for-all hellscape“.
Google recently conduct an experiment in Europe where it sought to counter anti-refugee narratives online in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The experiment in India will be bigger in scope as it will deal with multiple local languages, Bengali, Hindi and Marathi and cover diverse sections of a country populate by over a billion people.
Beth Goldman, Jigsaw’s head of research and development Said :
“This presented an opportunity to research prebunking in a non-western, global south market,”.
Like other countries, misinformation spreads rapidly across India, mostly through social media, creating political and religious tensions.
Indian government officials have call on tech companies such as Google, Meta, and Twitter to take stronger action against the spread of fake news.
The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) has repeatedly invoke “extraordinary powers” to block YouTube channels, and some Twitter and Facebook accounts, allegedly use to spread harmful misinformation.
Inflammatory messages have also spread via Meta’s messaging service Whatsapp, which has more than 200 million users in India.
In 2018, the company curbe the number of times a message could be forwarded, after false claims about child abductors led to mass beatings of more than a dozen people, some of whom died.
Working in collaboration with the Alfred Landecker Foundation, a pro-democracy organisation base in Germany, the philanthropic investment firm Omidya Network India, and a number of smaller regional partners, Jigsaw has produce five videos in three different languages.
After watching the videos, viewers will be ask to fill in a short multiple-choice questionnaire, design to gauge what they have learn about misinformation.
Google’s recent research on the subject suggest viewers were 5% more likely to identify misinformation after watching such videos.
The Indian initiative will focus on issues that resonate in the country, Beth Goldman said.
Results are expect to be publish in summer 2023.
