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As Rumors Fuel Mob Lynchings in India, WhatsApp Offers $50,000 Grants to Curb Fake News | The Washington Post

WhatsApp is offering research grants to social scientists to help it combat the spread of “misinformation” through the cross-platform messaging service. The move comes in the wake of a string of lynchings in India from fake news rumors spread on the free messaging platform.

The service, which is owned by Facebook, is offering up to $50,000 for proposals that “foster insights into the impact of technology on contemporary society in this problem space” including election-related content, digital literacy and “detection of problematic behavior within encrypted systems.”

WhatsApp has come under fire in recent days in India — its largest market — after a string of brutal slayings that left more than a dozen dead in more than five states — including eight dead in the past week alone. In most cases, innocent bystanders were beaten to death by mobs fed by WhatsApp rumors of child kidnappers or organ-harvesting rings. On Sunday, a mob in the western state of Maharashtra set upon five people from a nomadic tribe of beggars, beating the victims to death and then turning on police who tried to intervene.

Source: As rumors fuel mob lynchings in India, WhatsApp offers $50,000 grants to curb fake news