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Verify.Wiki is a start-up that uses the strength of social media to curb the flood of fake news.
“We use ‘reverse virality’ to fight false news and misinformation propagated via WhatsApp, Facebook and other social media channels,” said Siva Nadarajah, Co-founder and investor of the US-based company.
‘Reverse virality’
The term ‘reverse virality’ combines crowd-sourcing with social networking, enabling anyone to participate in submitting and verifying false news and misinformation. Through the platform anyone can anonymously submit suspicious messages found on social media, he said, adding that the company has hired a team of journalism students locally to do ground reporting on the message.
It also employs an internal team that uses tools such as reverse image searches to validate claims. The correct version goes through another round of verification before it is shared in the same medium where it was found. “We also invest in localised Facebook advertising targeting the neighbourhood where the news spread,” Nadarajah added.
Chennai launch
For instance, the company recently advertised in Perambur, in Chennai, where the news of a teacher kicking kids in a school there was going viral.
“We found that it was a video from Egypt recorded two years ago. Using Facebook advertising, we spread the correct version in Tamil so that we could reach more people,” he said.
The video was viewed by over 40,000 people in the area. The start-up launched the platform in Chennai two weeks back and is planning to expand to other cities in coming months.
There are also plans to launch in Sri Lanka, Brazil and Indonesia by September. Nadarajah said the areas are selected based on research conducted by the company on the prevalence of fake news.
Business model
This start-up is a not-for-profit platform.
For Verify.Wiki, the revenue comes from enterprises and brands, which is yet to be commercialised in the US. Nadarajah said he started the company in 2016 along with another co-founder when he saw major brands such as consumer health brands having issues dealing with fake news in the US.
The company launched a platform where enterprises can create profile and share trusted content on the platform.
Verify.Wiki then shares the content through its community of registered users in different social networking platforms for a fee.
The platform is still in pilot mode in the US.
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