Mumbai Cyber Police ropes in Logically to fight “fake news” ahead of Maharashtra Elections
October 17, 2019: Logically, the Extended intelligence (Artificial & Human Intelligence) powered Technology Company that detects ‘fake news’, logical fallacy, inaccuracies, and bias has partnered with the Mumbai Cyber Cell ahead of Maharashtra Elections. Since the last 20 days, the company has been monitoring various social media platforms namely Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and WhatsApp for MCC (Model Code of Conduct) violations. These violations are then reported to Election Commission of India for further actions.
The Maharashtra Cyber Police was the first of its kind upon proving its effectiveness in an ever-changing landscape. Their model works as an example and is currently being scaled throughout the rest of India. In the same spirit, Logically is confident of adding capabilities and capacity to the existing governmental and regulatory processes. It aims to help ensure information integrity and digital security during elections.
Upon evaluating the effectiveness of its collaborative approach during the Maharashtra State Assembly Elections, the company along with Cyber Police intends to continue to improve its technical approach and scale this POC (Proof of Concept) in other states as well as at the center.
In addition to bringing an arsenal of tools to detect and track problematic content, Logically has also exclusively dedicated 20 Fact-checkers and Verification experts, to form a collaborative reporting mechanism along with Maharashtra Cyber Police. It has set up a war-room in Maharashtra Cyber Office at World Trade Center, Mumbai that forms the central hub of all detection, tracking and reporting activities.
Speaking on the development, Lyric Jain (23) Founder and Promoter at Logically said,
“While monitoring candidates can help we realized that more than the candidates themselves, most of the amplification of problematic content is conducted by their followers, bots and bad actors such as foreign governments. We are constantly keeping a watch on these unscrupulous agents who spread misinformation or disinformation”
He further added, “So far misinformation regarding EVMs (Electronic Voting Machine) as well as doctored videos on EVMs being tampered with are extremely popular. Our previous experience with General Elections teaches us that this is just a start. During Lok Sabha elections, we detected 33,000 pieces of “fake news” however, the most active days were either on the day of elections or on results day. The most popular type of content on these days was misinformation about polling booths being moved and dates being changed which could be a possible attempt at voter suppression”
Apart from this, in its individual business capacity, Logically has also been monitoring “fake news” on Maharashtra Elections and continues to fact check claims provided by its users. The company with offices in India and UK recently launched its flagship product, the Logically app. A destination for news consumption, discussion, and verification it has gained more than 40,000 active users in just 6 months since its launch. The company is also actively expanding its operations in India and currently has the largest dedicated fact-checking team in the world.
After witnessing the breakdown in civic and political discourse during the Brexit debate and the 2016 presidential election in the US, Logically was started by 22-year old Cambridge, MIT graduate Lyric Jain in his hometown Mysore, Karnataka, India. Adding a layer of credibility to the internet to battle misinformation, the For the next few years, Logically aims to generalize AI models and continue to grow its fact-checking team to make sure they’re valid and impactful in broad use cases across geographies. This will enable Logically, to continue and build on its work to support democracies, build partnerships with government, media and content platforms.
