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Verified By BOOM 66

Verified By BOOM 66

How Easy Is It To Buy Guns Online?

September 29, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 11 minutes

Browser View | September 30, 2023 | Subscribe

Hello,

It’s fairly easy to buy guns through social media platforms.

On 6 August, Bhagirath Pareek posted a phone number to call for guns, on a Facebook group called ‘Gangstar’. The group is full of posts that showcase guns and have numbers listed for buyers. When the reporter contacted the given number, the man who picked up the call identified himself as Mohit Kashyap. He said he was from Ujjain but could deliver the weapon to Delhi within a day.

Read on.

🔖 Myth: You always need a laptop to fact-check/verify information because of tools!

Fact: Not at all.

Here's a quick guide on how you can use your phone to debunk viral claims.

Image Verification (Android users): A lot of you have pre-installed Google Lens on your phones. You just have to upload the viral image/ image that you want to verify and scroll through the search results.
Image Verification (iPhone users): You can download the Google app and perform the aforementioned steps to verify an image.
Verifying videos: Videos are nothing but a combination of images/ frames put in motion. So, just take screenshots of different frames => treat them as individual images => perform the aforementioned steps.
Finding location: You can geolocate a particular video/ image using two apps—Google Earth & Google Maps. Tip: Look for the street view.

P.S. These are just some of the techniques that you can use to verify online misinformation on your phones. Remember: Stop. Verify. Share.

📢🆕 BOOM’s WhatsApp Channel

Join BOOM’s WhatsApp channel by just clicking on this link or search for "BOOM factcheck" in the WhatsApp search bar.

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By Teens, Of Teens, For Teens

This week, the teens at Teen Fact-Checking Network India verified a viral video that claimed to be from the recent earthquake in Morocco. Here’s what they found!

Is This Video From The Recent Earthquake In Morocco? | Fact Check | Teen Fact Checking Network: BOOM

🅱️ Quiz

Do you know what really happened in the news this week? Find out by taking the BOOM quiz:

👆 Simply click on image above to start the quiz!

Humans of Bombay Vs People of India: Can An Idea Be Copyrighted?

The news: Popular social media page Humans of Bombay (HOB), which tells people’s stories, has sued its contemporary People of India (POI) for stealing its content and has demanded Rs. 5 crore in damages.

Questions: Can an idea be copyrighted? What are the copyright laws in India? Find out in this story by Ritika Jain.

🎙️ BOOM also conducted X Spaces wherein advocates weighed in on the same. You can listen to the recording here.

NEET PG 2023 Cut-Off Reduced to 'Zero' And Why Experts Are Opposed To It

The news: The National Medical Commission (NMC) of the Ministry of Health and Family Affairs (MoHFW), on 20 September, reduced the cut-off for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET)-Post Graduate (PG) 2023 to “zero” across all categories.
Social media uproar: Several social media users claimed that the Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya deliberately altered the cut-off percentile so that his daughter could obtain a PG seat. However, he has denied all the allegations.
Questions: Why has the cut-off been reduced to zero? Why are PG seats vacant? Find out in this story by Nidhi Jacob.

Why Is Moody's Concerned About Aadhaar In 'Humid' India?

🔖 Meanwhile, Moody's Investors Service, a prominent global rating agency, has raised significant concerns regarding India's Aadhaar, the 12-digit universal identity system, and has cast doubt on the dependability of biometric technologies.

In this story by Hera Rizwan, find out the details of the report and the Central government’s response.

Guns For Sale: YouTube Content Creators Are Flaunting Firearms

🔖 The gun culture is seemingly popular on social media in India. Decode’s Vipul Kumar & Rohit Shukla tracked some pages and their creators.

Decode tracked 9 pages on Instagram, 12 YouTube channels and more than 50 Facebook posts and Telegram channels that either sold or promoted guns.

On multiple Facebook groups, accounts claimed to sell weapons, each with phone numbers. Decode reached out to three of them. The individuals behind all three phone numbers confirmed that they sell weapons and sent photos of guns along with prices to the reporter.

Meanwhile, lots of Indian creators are showcasing guns to get views.

'Kidfluencers' Are Internet Stars But Do They Have A Safety Net?

🔖 Anantya always had a knack for recording herself on camera–be it unboxing toys or playing dress-up. Now as missmyanand, 13-year-old Anantya is a social media personality with 13.7 million followers on YouTube and 600,000 followers on Instagram.

The concern: Although these kidfluencers are essentially child entertainers; unlike television stars, their legal protection is limited to NCPCR guidelines that either aren’t well-known or not well-implemented.
Questions: So does the legal vacuum impact the rights of children who find their lives plastered on the internet for millions to see? And can parental consent be absolute if there exists a dichotomy in parents claiming the revenue for their child’s performance, while also regulating control over the child’s access to social media? Find out in Titha Ghosh’s story.

25 Fact-Checks Published

🔖 Political Content was circulated the most (28%), followed by Scripted Content (claims using CGI, animated videos , and dramatised content) at 20%, and Alarmist Content at 20%.

Majority of the claims were circulated in the form of Videos (52%), with the rest being done via Images (48%)

Read our thread on ‘X’ (formerly Twitter) to know the detailed analysis by Debraj Sarkar.

#BOOMWeeklyReport | Last week, BOOM published a total of 25 fact-checks. Of these, Political Content was circulated the most (28%), followed by Scripted Content (claims using CGI, animated videos , and dramatised content) at 20%, and Alarmist Content at 20%. (1/n)
#Thread
— BOOM Live (@boomlive_in)
8:14 AM • Sep 29, 2023

🚫 Fake News You Almost Fell For

🔍 This week, several news outlets reported about an alleged assault of an Indian Army soldier in Kadakkal, in Kerala's Kollam district, by a group of people, with the words "PFI"—short for Popular Front of India, a now-banned Islamic political organisation—written on his back by his assailants. But, is this a case of media misreporting? Find out in this fact-check by 🔗Archis Chowdhury & Sujith↗️.

🔍 An old photo showing a drone went viral online with the misleading claim that the Indian army recently captured a Pakistani drone after it crossed the line of control (LoC) and tried to enter Indian territory. Read 🔗Hazel Gandhi’s↗️ fact-check.

🔍Did you come across a video of a woman dancing to Aaj Phir Jeene Ki Tamanna Hai and thought that she is actor Waheeda Rehman? BOOM’s 🔗Swasti Chatterjee↗️ found out who the woman really is.

🅱️ Recommends

📖 This week's recommendation is: Responsible media technology and AI: challenges and research directions by Christoph Trattner, Dietmar Jannach, Enrico Motta et al.

This opinion paper highlights areas where traditional media is disrupted with innovations in tech that mark a paradigm shift in the relationship between content and consumer. The authors recommend research priorities, remedial technological interventions for global social problems that are believed to have been exacerbated with injudicious use of tech.

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Verified By Boom is written by Divya Chandra, edited by Adrija Bose

and designed by H Shiva Roy Chowdhury.

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 week.👋

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