Police set up spl team to fight fake news on social media
Residents Urged Not To Believe Rumours
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Chennai:13.02.2020
“Beware, don’t encourage people who approach your doorstep asking you to take a blood test for diabetes. They could be anti-social elements, belonging to a particular banned outfit roaming around to spread HIV.” – Tamil Nadu police. Such messages, purportedly from the law enforcers for effect, have been flooding social media platforms over the past few days and causing panic.
The city police have decided to act against such messages which are alarming and designed to disturb the public peace. A special team has been set up and will monitor and bust such fake news doing the rounds in social media. Police will also keep urging members of the public not to believe any rumours. “These fake messages don’t look like random rumours, but seem to be carefully composed. They look official enough to deceive people” said a police officer.
The subject could be about kidnappers on the prowl to take away children, about burglars set to strike at houses or about the safety of women. Recently, senior officers were surprised to see two messages with the logo of the state police asking the members of public to be wary of the child lifters, particularly in the northern parts of the state. Another one spoke about police providing exclusive cab services to women to ensure their safety. Both were found to be false. “We know these are fake messages, but still we conducted checks as the message appeared genuine,” said the officer.
The special team, comprising officers and staff from the social medisa monitoring wing, will check with personnel across various districts and after ensuring no such information had been passed will post the clarification message on the police’s social media accounts like Facebook and twitter. “Sometimes the messages are disturbing; some even land on our phones,” the officer said.
The team will monitor fake message and also probe the source of such messages. Once the culprit is found, he/she will be taken to task for spreading rumours.
“Our aim is to create awareness in the minds of the public and also to ensure they don’t get duped,” said police commissioner A K Vishwanathan.
Residents Urged Not To Believe Rumours
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Chennai:13.02.2020
“Beware, don’t encourage people who approach your doorstep asking you to take a blood test for diabetes. They could be anti-social elements, belonging to a particular banned outfit roaming around to spread HIV.” – Tamil Nadu police. Such messages, purportedly from the law enforcers for effect, have been flooding social media platforms over the past few days and causing panic.
The city police have decided to act against such messages which are alarming and designed to disturb the public peace. A special team has been set up and will monitor and bust such fake news doing the rounds in social media. Police will also keep urging members of the public not to believe any rumours. “These fake messages don’t look like random rumours, but seem to be carefully composed. They look official enough to deceive people” said a police officer.
The subject could be about kidnappers on the prowl to take away children, about burglars set to strike at houses or about the safety of women. Recently, senior officers were surprised to see two messages with the logo of the state police asking the members of public to be wary of the child lifters, particularly in the northern parts of the state. Another one spoke about police providing exclusive cab services to women to ensure their safety. Both were found to be false. “We know these are fake messages, but still we conducted checks as the message appeared genuine,” said the officer.
The special team, comprising officers and staff from the social medisa monitoring wing, will check with personnel across various districts and after ensuring no such information had been passed will post the clarification message on the police’s social media accounts like Facebook and twitter. “Sometimes the messages are disturbing; some even land on our phones,” the officer said.
The team will monitor fake message and also probe the source of such messages. Once the culprit is found, he/she will be taken to task for spreading rumours.
“Our aim is to create awareness in the minds of the public and also to ensure they don’t get duped,” said police commissioner A K Vishwanathan.
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