Verified By BOOM 23

Hello,

This week, we released the third and final video of our WhatApp Tipline campaign - an initiative to empower citizens to fight misinformation on the internet.

We know that not every piece of information on the internet is necessarily verified or true. Taking advice from the internet on medicines can hurt or even kill you. Exercise extreme caution and always refer to your family doctor or physician.If you come across any dubious forwards, report it to our 🔗WhatsApp Tipline Number at 7700906588.

This week, we are going to discuss election misinformation.

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

🗳️ With elections in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat around the corner, social media users have been sharing doctored/ edited and old screenshots/ graphics of news channels airing opinion polls. 

👉 For instance, an old ABP News bulletin predicting Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) victory in the 2017 Himachal Pradesh assembly election was shared as recent. 

Then, a set of four opinion polls were shared claiming to be from different news channels predicting an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) victory in the upcoming Gujarat state elections. However,

BOOM

found them to be fake and that they were not aired by these news channels. 

As fact-checkers, we have been debunking several morphed and fake graphics claiming to show news channels airing opinion polls and exit polls ahead of various elections. 

🚩

Here are some red flags that you can look for when you come across such graphics:☑️ News channel's logo

:

At times when old graphics are in circulation, you should compare the channel's current logo with the one that is there in the graphic. If there is a mismatch, it's a hint that the graphic might be old.

☑️ News channel's template:

 Media outlets usually stick to customised formats while airing opinion polls and exit polls. These templates might vary from election to election. Hence, a comparison of templates also helps.

☑️ Fonts

: In edited/ doctored graphics, we often see that there is a mismatch in the kind of fonts used when compared to the ones being used by the channel 

☑️ Top band and ticker: 

Another hint is the news strips running in the graphic. Let's say that the graphic is being claimed as recent, however the news strips running at the bottom of the graphic and at the top show old news stories, then that's a red flag!

☑️ Reverse image search:

 When you run a reverse image search on Google, Yandex et al, sometimes the results show you the original and authentic graphic shared by the news channel which has now been morphed. 

↪️ Was this forwarded to you?

Delhi's Grisly Murder Case Inspires Dehumanising Memes On The Internet 

🔖 While the grisly murder of Shraddha Walkar has left the country shocked, young internet users from India and Pakistan have been inspired by the crime to create dehumanising memes, mostly mocking the victim. 

In May 2022, Aaftab Poonawala, Walkar's boyfriend and live-in partner, allegedly strangled her to death. 

The gruesome details of the crime have now been taken up as hot topics for memes on Facebook and Reddit. Misogynistic and Islamophobic tropes were rampant in the highly abusive posts discussing the murder. 

How 16 Indian Sailors Were Detained In Equatorial Guinea While Escaping From A 'Pirate Boat' 

🔖 It's been over 90 days since 16 Indian sailors were detained by the Equatorial Guinea navel in international waters when they were expected to to load a cargo of crude oil in the AKPO terminal of Nigeria. 

Why were the sailors arrested? BOOM spoke to a relative of one of the sailors who had been detained. Read this report to know what they have to say. 

🔖 Social media posts claiming US President Joe Biden called an emergency meeting at the recently concluded G20 summit in Indonesia while excluding Prime Minister Narendra Modi, are misleading and false. 

🔖 Hindi news channel AajTak fell for a satirical tweet from Elon Musk where the new boss of the social media site Twitter, claimed he had rehired two of the fired employees who had been sacked in the recent mass layoffs at the micro-blogging platform. 

Read this fact-check to know more

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

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

[email protected]

 and we will get back to you in a jiffy.

Thanks for reading. See you next Saturday 👋