PTI joins Meta's India fact-checking team

Reports agency Press Trust of India (PTI) now has a dedicated fact-checking unit within PTI's editing department as part of Meta's announced expansion of its third-party fact-checking programme in India. PTI will evaluate and rank content on Meta platforms for false information as part of this collaboration. To counter false information, Meta works with accredited independent third-party fact-checkers.

Globally, the company has built one of the largest independent fact-checking networks, with nearly 100 partners around the world to review and rate viral misinformation in more than 60 languages.

With the partnership with the PTI, Meta now has 12 fact-checking partners in India, the highest it has in any country, the company said in a statement.

It covers 16 Indian languages through existing fact-checking partners – Bengali, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Urdu, Punjabi, Assamese, Manipuri/ Meitei, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Kashmiri, Bhojpuri, Oriya and Nepali – besides English.

Each time a fact-checker rates a piece of content as false, altered or partly false, Meta reduces its distribution so that fewer people see it.

It notifies people who try to share the content – or who previously shared it – that the information was rated by a fact-checker, and adds a warning label that links to the fact-checker’s article with more information about the claim.

The focus of the programme is to address viral misinformation, particularly clear hoaxes that have no basis in fact, according to the company. Fact-checking partners prioritize provably false claims that are timely, trending and consequential.