Meta expands 3rd party fact-checking programme in India

On Tuesday, Meta announced that it was adding NewsMeter, a fact-checker that primarily focuses on the southern states of the nation, to its third-party fact-checking programme in India.

With the help of this alliance, Meta will have 11 fact-checking partners in India, making it the nation with the most of these partners worldwide. Through its current fact-checking partners, Meta has also increased the number of Indian languages it supports from 11 to 15, adding Kashmiri, Bhojpuri, Oriya, and Nepali.

According to a statement from the company, the partnership will improve Meta's fact-checking capabilities in regional Indian languages like Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, and Tamil and connect people to reliable and accurate information.

Meta collaborates with more than 80 fact-checking partners internationally who evaluate and rate content in more than 60 languages. The independent, nonpartisan International Fact-Checking Network has approved all of Meta's fact-checking partners.

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," said the company.