Newly emerging websites help fact-check people’s questions.
Fact-checking websites are coming up with new niche topics to help get people answers that they cannot get factually answered anywhere else. Websites like Check4spam has this exact game plan.
Check4spam, a scientific and news checking website, only allows verified researchers and doctors answering questions on their website, providing accurate answers to people online. The start-up’s most requested fact-checks have been about health and news topics: the safety of artificial sweeteners, processed meats, drinking alcohol, political news, hate speeches, etc. The site has been widely accepted by students and professors across Bangalore for educational and research purposes.
Check4spam is a Bangalore based start-up. The company focuses on busting myths, fighting fake news and verifying all news and science-based queries. Bal Krishn Birla, founder of Check4spam says, “Our mission is to make life easy for the common man and life trouble for the spammers and people who spread fake science theories and news.”
Vishvendra Rathore, a software developer at Kredex in Bangalore, said that fact-checking websites with a specific niche, in this case, science and news, is very helpful especially in a time when facts are being manipulated for various self-serving reasons.
“It’s a great idea for websites to answer queries accurately with actual facts especially for websites like Metafact and Check4spam which only lets certified professors, researchers and doctors answer questions. This is not just a good business venture as it is different from other kinds of fact-checking websites, and is also a great service to the public.”
According to Metafact, another fact-checking website, “Only verified PhDs, researchers and medical specialists from our community can answer the questions. They can justify their answers by sharing more details, insights, latest evidence or data. Other independent experts can also answer, endorse or contribute their knowledge. The number of experts who have answered and the expert consensus score will aggregate to show you a summary representing collective knowledge.”
Mudrika Pethkar, a student of Bangalore University, said that this website has helped her answer her most perplexing questions: “This one time, I posted a question on the Check4spam forum, which was something related to satellite images in Pakistan after the Balakot strike. I got a very accurate answer by a researcher and my doubt was cleared instantaneously.”
In a world of technology where lies are spun around easily through the Internet, fact-checking websites debunk misleading statements. Check4spam claims that “this is a big problem, since without knowledge of what is reliable or truthful; people cannot make better decisions that help their lives, their country or the world around them.”So the more fact-checking websites come up with new ways to spread accurate information, the fewer influence lies would have on the public.
