Social media rumours on wrestling body row & airline debacle busted | India News

In the wake of wrestlers’ protest, the Supreme Court has disqualified Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, the president of the Wrestling Federation of India, and sentenced him to 20 years in prison. ” This was among thousands of forwarded messages including, “Under free mobile recharge scheme by Prime Minister Narendra Modi all Indian users have been promised to give free recharge of Rs 239 for 28 days” and “Following Go-Air filing for bankruptcy, Indigo Airlines to purchase Go-Air and resume new operations by 25th May”, that TOI recently busted as fake.
Under the ‘Times Verified’ campaign, readers send suspicious messages circulating on social media to this paper on the WhatsApp number 9819888887. To verify their credibility, our expert panel — made up of reporters, editors and representatives from the municipality and the government — taps into its network of sources.

Since the national launch of the ‘Times Verified’ initiative on November 21 last year, TOI’s editorial team has received over 1. 5 lakh messages, over a half of which turned out to be false. Besides misleading international headlines like, “Due to rising temperature, Indian Oil Corporation has warned against filling petrol to maximum limit as it can cause an explosion in the fuel tank” to “BCCI contemplating to ban Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir from the Indian Premier League for 2 years after their spat during a recent IPL game”, the misinformation also included messages like, “A report published by the International Commission of Jurists in collaboration with the UN’s AIDS agency report calls for decriminalization of all sexual activity, including between adults and minors”.
An international study suggested that websites are using AI tools such as ChatGPT to churn out news articles, sparking concerns about the potential spread of unverified information. The report pointed to one website that published an article with the headline: “Biden dead. Harris acting President, address 9am ET.”
In this scenario, building an army of chain-breakers is vital. Our brigade includes Maharashtra’s Vivek Amonkar and Vijay Dongre, Karnataka’s Niladri Acharya, TN’s Govinda Raju and Bihar’s Kedar Nath Srivastava.