Chatbot: Tool towards debunking the misinformation and fake news

By Digital Empowerment Foundation

Over the past years India has seen some of the most adverse fallouts of online misinformation. Whether it is the form of offline violence, social panic, or targeted campaigns of harassment, the problematics of misinformation are rather complex and diverse society like India. Fact-checking and media and information literacy (MIL) have emerged as potential strategies for countering misinformation.

Under the project Developing Rural Ecosystem Against Misinformation (DREAM) funded by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), DEF imparted media and information literacy skills amongst the community through the creation of call-in numbers and chatbot that have enabled a community to report misinformation and rumours circulating within the community.

These two mechanisms have enabled the community to report problematic content circulating within the community and also enabled the aggregation of the community level misinformation to track the type of problematic content circulating within the community.

We received over three thousand queries from people of myriad backgrounds on questions ranging from information around COVID-19. The response on chatbot highlights the reach of the project and the importance of countering misinformation.

Below is the glimpse of such community level engagement with misinformation and its fact-checking mechanism via chatbot.

1. Poonam Khedla, a Soochnapreneur from Alwar, Rajasthan, creating awareness among Women’s on using chatbot as a tool to debunking the misinformation and fake news on COVID-19 Appropriate Behaviour.
2. Madhuri Gautam, Sidhi, Madhya Pradesh creating awareness among community on using chatbot as a tool to debunking the misinformation and fake news on COVID-19 Vaccination.
3. Fulwanti Devi, a Soochnapreneur from West Champaran, Bihar, creating awareness among Women on using chatbot as a tool to debunking the misinformation and fake news on COVID-19 Sensitive Health.
   
4. Neha Kumari, a Soochnapreneur from Ranchi, Jharkhand, creating awareness among Girls & Women on using chatbot as a tool to debunking the misinformation and fake news on COVID Sensitive Health & COVID-19 Sensitive Nutrition.
   
5. Jyoti Singh, Panna, Madhya Pradesh creating awareness among community on using chatbot as a tool to debunking the misinformation and fake news on COVID-19 Vaccination.