Many a WhatsApp user has fallen prey to the scary viral message warning them about some or other thing supposedly happening in their neighbourhood.

There’s the one that tells you to suspiciously regard any litter outside your house as a sign that you’ve been ‘marked’. Other popular fake news texts involve home affairs, random criminally suspect women, and dog fighting rings.

The genius behind the WhatsApp viral message is that you usually receive it from a source that you know, be it a paranoid relative or someone on the neighbourhood watch, so it’s often difficult to sort the trash from the truth.

They also feed into already existing fears and poke at negative shared beliefs and behaviours – like those people who want backup info for their casually racist “back in the good old days” nostalgia rants.

‘Oh look, a politician I don’t like said something crazy and I must now forward it to everyone I know without verifying if there is an iota of truth in the quote’.

You may well know someone who does this.

Here’s News24:

On open platforms such as Facebook or Twitter, fake news or alerts are usually spotted by someone and reported. But on WhatsApp, fake messages are hard to spot and are often taken at face value.

That’s why Africa Check, the same folks who are helping Facebook distinguish between real and fake news in South Africa, has decided to launch a service that can authenticate or disprove content shared on WhatsApp.

Kate Wilkinson, acting deputy chief editor at Africa Check, told News24 that the organisation will be launching a new fact-checking mechanism aimed specifically at WhatsApp users. “It is a ‘show’ of sorts that is going to be produced and shared as a voice note on WhatsApp,” says Wilkinson.

It’s amazing that we need a service like this, given that a smartphone with WhatsApp usually has access to Google, but I guess we can’t trust people to follow a few simple steps before spreading rubbish.

The name of the Africa Check ‘show’ is What’s Crap on WhatsApp. If you receive a potentially dodgy message on the platform, you resist the urge to send it to everyone you know and send it instead to a dedicated WhatsApp number (073 749 7875 – SA only), or tweet a screenshot to Africa Check’s Twitter page.

“If they receive a viral video or something they think might be a hoax, they can forward that to us on WhatsApp. Over the course of a month, we will have a look at what we get and then put together a two- to three-minute breakdown of what is true and what not.”

You can see the start of the campaign here:

Help us fight #fakenews & misinformation on WhatsApp! Tweet us a screenshot of a dodgy warning, hoax or viral video you’ve seen on WhatsApp recently. We’ll debunk the dodgiest fakes & send it back to you in a voice note. pic.twitter.com/S5LCqhVL8L

— Africa Check (@AfricaCheck) March 27, 2019

They’ll even provide you with an alternative text to circulate.

…”We have weekly broadcast lists where we send out a roundup of everything we have fact-checked – that’s how we usually engage with people. So at this stage we will send it out as a broadcast to people who have added us and people can respond to us and we engage with our followers on WhatsApp and respond to follow-up questions.”

Simple.

It will also save you the trouble of that red-faced encounter with that one relative who always points out that you’ve been sharing ‘crap’.

[source:news24]