Govt of India Launches Telegram Channel to Prevent Misinformation About COVID-19

Telegram Messenger, the instant messaging app that has a dedicated user-base in India and around the world, has appear that it is working closely with the governments and health ministries in several countries to meliorate serve its users during the coronavirus pandemic. In an official press release this calendar week, the company claimed that verified Telegram channels are among the virtually powerful broadcasting tools "where unlimited number of audiences can be reached out with high actuality at a unmarried time".

In order to spread the correct information and adjourn fake news apportionment, Telegram has helped create a number of official verified channels for the health departments of a number of countries, including Bharat, Israel, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Saudi arabia, Singapore, Spain, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. The channels show upwards at the top of coronavirus-related search results in the respective countries, helping people get verified info from healthcare professionals rather than conspiracy theories and misinformation from unsavory sources.

Telegram'south arroyo to tackling the problem of fake news on its platform is not too dissimilar to how its biggest competitor, WhatsApp, has been dealing with it in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak. The Facebook-endemic company recently tied-upward with the Indian government and the Globe Health Organization (WHO) to launch dedicated chatbots that tin be accessed by anyone looking to go authentic information about the pandemic.

In case of Telegram, the visitor admits that misinformation virtually the pandemic is a trouble on its platform, saying it'south "highly important to distinguish authenticated trustworthy sources from the pro-actively generated faux Channels". To rectify the trouble, the visitor has launched a verification process for all channels with the aid of @verifybot. The visitor is too notifying users about the new government-run channels in the aforementioned countries to help them get real-time updates and information on COVID-19.

You can check out the Indian government's official MyGov Corona NewsDesk channel on Telegram or the Health Ministry building'southward mygov.in/covid-19 website for more information on the state of the pandemic in Republic of india.