WhatsApp to trace the origin of fake messages, set up servers in India

The instant messaging platform had earlier expressed inability in tracing the origin of messages citing privacy of consumers.

Fake News Controversy: With the government threatening action against WhatsApp over spread of fake news, the chief executive officer (CEO) of the American messaging platform, Chris Daniels, flew down to New Delhi to fix things.

Daniels, who took over as the boss of WhatsApp in May, on Tuesday told the government it would work out a technological solution to trace the origin of fake messages. The Facebook-owned firm, with more than 200 million active subscribers in India, also committed to complying with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) rules relating to local storage of financial data by having servers in India.

Daniels, a Facebook insider known for running internet.org at the California-based social media firm, has been firefighting with the Indian authorities over fake news soon after he was appointed as the WhatsApp boss.

Whatsapp Fake News Measures

Following an exchange of letters with the Department of Information Technology on the steps to block fake news, the WhatsApp team decided to meet the authorities in person to list out the corrective measures planned by the company. In the country for three to four days, the team would meet other ministers and bureaucrats as well. It could not be confirmed if a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi was scheduled.

Within hours of his interaction with Daniels, Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad was off to Argentina for an ICT conference. From there, he will travel to Silicon Valley, which houses several prominent tech companies including WhatsApp. The minister is scheduled to meet top executives of many tech companies including Google during his...continue reading

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News Source: BS

Cambridge Analytica Row: Who used stolen data for polls – Congress or BJP?

Ravi Shankar Prasad said, ‘The Congress must explain if it has engaged in data trade with Cambridge Analytica’.

Latest News : The BJP and the Congress accused each other of using the services of embattled data consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica (CA) that along with Facebook is at the centre of a global row over the alleged unauthorized use of personal data from the social media giant.

As the firestorm over the issue hit India, the government warned Facebook, which is being probed by US and British lawmakers over a potential breach of user confidentiality, of stringent action if any attempt was made to influence the country’s electoral process through “undesirable means”.

However, the company’s India partner Oveleno Business Intelligence (OBI) lists the BJP, the Congress and the JD-U as its clients. The India partner is by Amrish Tyagi, son of senior JD-U leader K. C. Tyagi. In media interviews, the junior Tyagi admitted that the Youth Congress in Jharkhand, the BJP and the JD-U had used its services to conduct research.

BJP leader and Union Law and IT and Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad cited media reports to allege that the Congress was using the services of the London-based political data analytics firm for the next Lok Sabha election and boost its president Rahul Gandhi’s social media profile and its outreach.

“The Congress must explain if it has engaged in data trade with Cambridge Analytica,” the minister said.

He said the number of Gandhi’s followers on Twitter had risen recently and wondered if the Congress had used the services of the Cambridge Analytica for this “fake popularity”.

“Will the Congress now depend on data manipulation and theft to woo voters,” Prasad asked.

“These days, there is a lot of news about CA and how it has been involved in data theft, psychometric analysis, data manipulation and subversion of democratic processes. Can the Congress deny that?” he asked.

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