Browser View | October 28, 2023 | Subscribe

Hello,

Imagine you come across a circular + screenshot of Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) website + video showing a bulletin of a mainstream news channel—all of them claiming that RBI has revoked the license of an XYZ bank.

Believable, right? Considering too many “sources” are saying so. Read on!

🔖 No, this is not a hypothetical situation. This is exactly what happened when the aforementioned elements were passed off to claim that the central bank decided to revoke the license of Abhyudaya Co-operative Bank on 12 October this year.

Let’s look at the veracity of the elements one by one:

• The notification: BOOM reached out to RBI spokesperson Yogesh Dayal who said that the viral notification is fake and that RBI has not made any such decision.

• Screenshot of RBI’s website: We also checked the Reserve Bank of India's official website but did not find any such notification that was issued on 12 October 2023.

• Also, the alleged screenshot of the official RBI website is a morphed version. See the comparison below.

• The news bulletin: BOOM found that the news bulletin, which was supposedly aired on AajTak, has also been doctored to claim that Abhyudaya Co-operative Bank customers will be restricted to withdrawing no more than Rs 1000 from their accounts for a duration of six months.

• The viral video contains a jump cut and the portion where the anchor originally talks about Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative Bank has been cropped out.

Read the full story here.

🅱️ 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!

Locked Aadhaar Leaves Assam Residents Without Jobs

🔖 In June 2021, the government of India mandated that Employees' Provident Fund (EPF) account holders should link their Aadhaar number to their accounts for functionality, a requirement Assam’s Shajahan Ali Ahmad couldn't meet.

His Aadhaar has been locked since 2018. He faced an abrupt termination from his assistant manager position at a private bank due to his inability to maintain an EPF account.

He is not the only one. Read Hera Rizwan’s story.

Read More

A Teenager’s Instagram Got Hacked And The Family Still Paying The Price

🔖 Meanwhile, on 15 August, Maaz (name changed) saw an Instagram post on Shivaji Maharaj from his account. The police found out that his account was hacked.

Dilshad Sheikh, the mother of the 14-year-old told Decode’s Samriddhi Sakunia that while she thought that things would settle down after the police confirmed that her son’s account was hacked, it hasn’t.

Read More

👋 What is your biggest online nightmare?

Tell us by filling the survey.

Decode wants to bring more such stories into the limelight and for that we need your support.

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AI-Generated Child Sexual Abuse Material 'Nightmare' Is Now A Reality: Report

🔖In its latest report, the UK-based Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) has flagged a flood of AI-generated images of child sexual abuse on the internet.

The watchdog has urged the governments and technology providers to act quickly before this "nightmare" overwhelms law enforcement investigators with an expanding pool of potential victims.

Find out the key findings of the report in this explainer by Hera Rizwan. 

Read More

🚫 Fake News You Almost Fell For

🔍 A video of Madhya Pradesh's Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan admitting that the Bharatiya Janata Party's prospects in the upcoming state election were worrisome and appealing to his party members to work hard at their campaigns went viral. But, did he really say this? Read 🔗 Hazel Gandhi’s ↗️ fact-check to find out.

🔍 An old video of Yazidi Iraqi MP Vian Dakhil talking about the atrocities committed by terrorist group 'Islamic State' against the Yazidi community in Iraq was shared with a false claim that it shows an Israeli woman narrating her experience when she was held captive by Islamic militant group Hamas. Read this fact-check to find out how 🔗 Anmol Alphonso ↗️ debunked the claim.

🔍 A video of a man making derogatory remarks against Hinduism while claiming to be a Muslim, recently gained widespread attention on social media platforms, with allegations of promoting communal discord. BOOM’s 🔗 Srijit Das ↗️found out the truth.

🅱️ Recommends

📖 This week's recommendation is: All the News That’s Fit to Fabricate: AI-Generated Text as a Tool of Media Misinformation by Sarah Kreps, R. Miles McCain, and Miles Brundage

The objective of this study is twofold: to study peoples’ perception of AI-generated text (made to resemble journalistic coverage of issues) in comparison to the ones written by journalists, and to ascertain the impact of the former on the user’s partisan associations.

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.

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