It cannot be denied that the percentage of fake news spreading is increasing. Coupled with the existence of various platforms, especially the WhatsApp application, which is used as the main medium of dissemination. At the same time, it can cause concern among users themselves because it touches on sensitive 3R issues.
To deal with it, the government through the Ministry of Communications is implementing drastic measures by developing a chabbot on WhatsApp that checks the validity of information disseminated through the application.
It was developed in collaboration with Meta while the source of the validity of the answer was obtained from the reports of the JomCheck and MyCheck groups under Bernama. Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese, Indian and English will be supported by the chatbot.
Users only need to start a conversation with the chatbot to check the validity of the message and a response will be given within 1-2 minutes. It is still in the testing stage with some technical aspects to be completed so far before the launch of the full version at the end of this month. Only messages in the form of text can be checked so the dissemination of information in the form of pictures and videos can still happen.
This year WhatsApp has announced a fact-checking chatbot in India to combat any fake news before the general election. Today's announcement makes Malaysia one of the first countries to have a fact-checking feature built into WhatsApp.