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Hello,

If you got scammed, what is that one thing you will definitely do? I am guessing you will go to a police station and file a report, right?

But, what if I told you that cops got duped by cops. And the scam amounts to Rs 400 crores. Read on!

🔖 As we, at BOOM, continue to debunk and verify viral online misinformation around the Israel-Hamas conflict on a daily basis, here are some tips that can help you spot false information and differentiate between what’s real and fake.

• Question the source: Is the viral message telling the source of information to you? If not, ask the person or account who shared it. Always look for the primary source of information.

• Which link to click on and trust?: There is no easy answer to this because anybody can fall for misinformation no matter how credible the outlet is. But still, you should see if the link is properly attributing the information to the right sources.You should check how comprehensive it is in terms of the information it's giving out. Check if the link is citing data or quoting officials or carrying some official documents.

• Search for fact-checks: More often than not, you will find a fact-check article on online misinformation that went viral. When you search on Google using relevant keywords, and if there is a pre-existing fact-check, then usually fact-checks are ranked much higher on the search result page as compared to other articles.

• Send it to BOOM on WhatsApp: If you come across anything that you are suspicious about, send it to us on our WhatsApp number: 7700906588 and we'll fact-check it for you.

So, the next time you come across any piece of information,🛑 stop, ✅ verify and then ↗️ share!

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🅱️ 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!

SC Says No To Same-Sex Marriage, Only Parliament Can Decide

🔖 The Supreme Court delivered its verdict on pleas seeking marriage equality. The Constitution bench gave four opinions on this issue.

The bench unanimously ruled against the legalisation of same-sex, though a 3:2 minority opinion favoured civil unions for queer couples with the right to adopt.

BOOM’s Ritika Jain recaps the four differing opinions observed.

Read More

🎧 You can also listen to our X spaces for a discussion on the verdict with activists and people from the community here.

A Rs 400 Cr Scam: Cops Got Duped By Cops With Fake Cryptocurrency

🔖 Cops duped cops with fake cryptocurrency. Surprised?

Well, this is Jagdish Sharma’s story. He is a sub-inspector from Himachal Pradesh and is not a rookie. Rather he knows about frauds and scams all too well.

If there’s anyone who shouldn’t have been duped in a cryptocurrency fraud, it's him. And yet he lost 9 lakh rupees to a fake cryptocurrency scam.

Himachal Pradesh police are now investigating their own team. To know more, read Saurabh Chauhan’s story.

Read More

India's Bid To Host 2036 Olympics: How Is A Host City Chosen?

🔖 Prime Minister Narendra Modi, last week, said that India is ready to bid for hosting the 2036 Olympics. PM Modi was speaking at the opening ceremony of the 141st International Olympic Committee (IOC) Session in Mumbai.

So, who selects the Olympic host? What are the steps that a bid must undergo before being accepted by the IOC? Read Hera Rizwan’s explainer to find out.

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🚫 Fake News You Almost Fell For

🔍 A video showing some children digging through burnt debris to look for food was falsely connected to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. BOOM’s 🔗 Hazel Gandhi and Sujith ↗️ found that the video predates the Israel-Hamas conflict.

🔍 Several official social media accounts linked to the Israeli government shared a video of a dead body of a child from Gaza, and falsely claimed that it was a doll, and not a real child. Read 🔗 Archis Chowdhury’s ↗️ fact-check.

🔍 An old video of football player Cristiano Ronaldo voicing his support for Syrian children went viral online with the false claim that he recently expressed his support for the children of Palestine. BOOM’s 🔗Hazel Gandhi ↗️ found that the video is from 2016 and is unrelated to the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.

🅱️ Recommends

📖 This week's recommendation is: As misinformation surges during the Israel-Hamas war, where is AI? by Alex Mahadevan

This piece published by Poynter Institute points out how generative AI hasn’t been a major factor in the barrage of misinformation around the Israel-Hamas conflict. Instead, real videos being taken out of context, unrelated videos from other conflicts and video games are being used to churn out false information.

Read More

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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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