As the Lok Sabha elections are drawing near, social media companies are taking various steps in order to ensure smooth flow of polling by introducing features and tools to curb misinformation on their platforms. WhatsApp launched the second leg of its “Share Joy, Not Rumours” education campaign in order to ensure responsible use of its platform before Lok Sabha elections. Now, Facebook has launched two new India-specific tools to boost civic engagement on its platform — Candidate Connect and Share You Voted.
The first feature named ‘Candidate Connect’ will help users to learn more about the candidates, while the second ‘Share You Voted’ tool is introduced for users to share polling information and enable people to celebrate and announce their vote.
The questions listed under the ‘Candidate Connect’ feature are a result of Facebook’s locally conducted consumer research programme.
Samidh Chakrabarti, Facebook India’s Director of Product Management for Civic Integrity, announced in a statement that “We have more than tripled the team working on safety and security to 30,000 people, introduced unprecedented transparency requirements for political advertising, improved our ability to detect and remove fake accounts and stepped up our efforts to fight false news and misinformation.”
According to Facebook, voters in India would be able to watch 20-second videos of candidates from their respective constituencies, through a bookmark in their settings as well as through a message in their News Feed.
“We aim to better equip our users as they look forward to participating in the political process of the country,” Chakrabarti further added.
Both the tools will be made available in 12 Indian languages to improve the reachability of the features.
Meanwhile, WhatsApp has launched a second variant of its campaign in order to curb fake news circulation on its platform.
Adding to the earlier TV, print and radio ads, the new campaign would educate users on the controls available on WhatsApp in order to empower users to stop the circulation of fake news and misinformation, the company said in a statement.
The first phase of the campaign effectively reached hundreds of millions of users in India across both rural and urban areas, claimed the company, adding that the messaging platform is building up on the campaign with a second-round focused on ensuring a safe election process.
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