Verified By BOOM 21

⛔ Misinformation on Morbi Incident; MP's Khargone Controversy

November 05, 2022 • Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes

Hello,

A few weeks back we released the second video of our awareness campaign on how to fight misinformation using WhatsApp. Take a look in case you missed it and ↪️ share far and wide! 

Send Dubious forwards to our 

🔗

This week, we are going to discuss what information to 'forward' and when to 'forward! 

👋 I'm Divya Chandra, a fact-checker & producer of Verified by BOOM, let's begin.

📅 Last week, we shared a video with you asking what you would do if you received such a video on WhatsApp along with the following message.

I had earlier asked the same question at our fact-checking workshop in IIT Madras and some of the participants said:

"I would share it with 10 more people because I found it funny.""I wouldn't share it further because I know it's fake."

To give you some context:

The video is not "fake" per se, but the message along with the video is false. 

The video has nothing to do with the Russia-Ukraine crisis, rather it shows a protest demonstration in Vienna, Austria where protesters covered themselves with body bags to show lives that could be lost by climate change.

But you can only know the context if you question the source before you share the video further. 

↪️ Was this forwarded to you?

🐦 Twitter's Blue Tick: What Happens If Elon Musk's Wish Is Real? 

🔖 Elon Musk, the new boss of Twitter, cleared the air on verification and said that it will now cost $8 per month for users to keep their blue tick. This comes after much speculation and media reports since Musk took over the social media platform as its chief and suggested that Twitter will make the verification paid. 

What was Twitter's verification process? What was the 'blue tick' meant for? Was it misused? And what happens if Elon Musk makes it mandatory to pay for verification? 

BOOM breaks it down in this explainer.

How A Trust Used Urdu Name And Islamophobia To 'Dupe' Farmers 

🔖 Six months after the riot hit town of Khargone began limping back to normalcy, a new controversy has exposed the eroded trust between the two communities. 

A trust run by a group of Hindus used an Urdu name, appointed a Muslim manager and intimidated Hindus to purchase their land at throwaway prices. Islamophobia was the tool. 

Read more about the organisation, the man behind the organisation, the purpose and the complaints in BOOM's ground report. 

🔖 On 30 October, the collapse of a suspension bridge in Morbi led to the deaths of over 130 people. What followed was some false and misleading claims around the incident. 

A set of two photos, one showing a patient's leg with a simple dressing and another photo of the same man with a plaster around the same leg, was shared with a misleading claim that his injuries are fake and the plaster added only before the arrival of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 1 November. 

🔖 Meanwhile, an old screenshot of the Australian site of Cadbury, which states that their products contain gelatin derived from beef is circulating with misleading claims among Indian social media users.

We have been rigorously conducting LIVE workshops on busting fake news and telling you how to consume media. Check out our existing courses👇

We sincerely apologise for sending the newsletter a day late this week.

If you have suggestions about this newsletter or want us to conduct workshops on specific topics, drop us a line at 👉 

 and we will get back to you in a jiffy.

Thanks for reading. See you next Saturday 👋