Indian telecoms director dismisses concerns about spread of fake news on WhatsApp
A board member at one of India’s biggest mobile phone networks has dismissed concern about the spread of fake news on WhatsApp in the country as "metropolitan condesension".
Speaking at a conference in California, Shumeet Banerji, a director of Reliance Jio, said Indians had more understanding about technology and misinformation than was widely recognised.
It comes after WhatsApp, owned by Facebook, has been accused of failing to contain a wave of false stories that have led to lynchings and riots in India. The government has demanded that WhatsApp take action to "end this menace" and that it cannot evade responsibility for the spread of messages.
Reliance Jio's position on the phenomenon is particularly relevant because the operator has given millions of Indians access to the internet for the first time through cheap phones that offer access to the messaging service.
Mr Banerji said many of the concerns were overblown. “The level of sophistication and understanding of what is true, false, and what is used, by the way, in a pernicious way by people who wish to, is quite well-understood," he said.
Asked about concerns raised over false stories spread over WhatsApp, he said it was "important to not overdo the metropolitan condescension of poor, uneducated people - they understand technology very quickly."
He acknowledged that there were “downsides” to connectivity and the spread of mobile devices but said this “comes with the territory”.
“I absolutely believe that this technology is transformative for India,” he told the Techonomy conference, citing access to mobile banking as a way to prevent poor Indians being extorted into giving up welfare money.
Corrupt figures make money, he said, by taking "a dollar off every poor person in the country. Makes you a billion - not bad.
“If the finance minister can hit a red button on the 31st of the month and your account automatically credits for 1200 rupees, for your minimum income guarantee, all that's gone.”
India is among countries considering introducing a minimum income guarantee, also known as universal basic income, which involves the Government giving every citizen money regardless of their needs.
The messaging app WhatsApp, owned by Facebook, allows users to spread messages quickly to groups with multiple users via the forwarding function.
It began labelling the messages to make clear they had been forwarded in July, in an effort to limit the influence of rumours and misinformation.
In September WhatsApp and Jio launched a partnership aimed at educating 25m users of the new JioPhone on how to spot a forwarded message and encouraging them to think about how they share messages.
The company’s first phone came out last year and costs 1,500 rupees (£16.28), which is refundable on the return of the handset, and a second model, the JioPhone 2, launched in August. While both allow users to connect to the internet, they initially launched without WhatsApp, with the app added in September.
Unofficial estimates by the BBC suggest that at least 31 people have been killed this year in the country in mob violence triggered by messages on social media and Whatsapp.
Rumours about child abductors have promoted mobs of hundreds to attack people, often migrants, beggars and outsiders, who they believe to be acting suspiciously across India.
In one example an awareness video created by a Pakistani awareness group, showing a group pretending to abduct a child, was spread as if it was footage of a real incident, said to have taken place in Bangalore.
Among the victims include a state government employee who had been campaigning against the rumours, a man who became a suspect after he covered his face with a handkerchief because of the heat, and a 63-year-old woman who was killed after giving chocolates to children.
