WhatsApp appoints a Grievance Officer for India! What’s that?

Perhaps there isn’t a day that goes without you checking your WhatsApp status. Isn’t it? The probability of that happening is about the same as that of the occurrence of a leap year every single year. You text when you eat breakfast or when you walk the treadmill and when you wait at the mall for a friend or often while driving. WhatsApp has changed our lives in more ways than what our people could ever have.

But when not looked at from the perspective of an obsession, WhatsApp is a great tool, after all. And now, there’s an essential piece of news coming in the day regarding the smart messaging application.

Apparently, where it comes to its India operations, then the Facebook-owned firm has appointed an expert who’ll serve as a grievance officer for India, a huge market for social media platforms. That leaves us to understand a basic question. Just what is a grievance officer for WhatsApp in India and what does his or her job entail?

Apparently, this position has been created with the background of dangerous and sinister messages that affect our psyche and hamper our lives. On the concerning matter, authorities from the social media messaging app shared that in order to take the fight against fake news has this new job been created.

Fake news, of course, is one of the most contagious problems in today’s day and age the spread of which is rampant in mass markets and populated regions where at the mere mention of a false-flag a ruckus can be created at the back of triggering a fake occurrence or activity.

We have seen in the recent past of India that how the world’s largest democracy has been impacted by the contagious spread of fake news. The excessive rise of mob lynching as seen in the case of (the scenario of) fake kidnappings, that stemmed from a false rumour that was created to affect the peace of the common people.

WhatsApp, apparently, it is believed, under fire for not doing enough for the community- at large- may have upped the ante of steps categorically taken to curb the fake news menace. One of the popular and most common examples of fake news was the rumoured Y2 Bug, that germinated from western media-driven propagandist theories.

Billions of dollars worth budgets were formed to take care of the operating infrastructure of tech, IT and computers around 2 decades back in time and it was all a pointless exercise, was it not?

Speaking more elaborately on the problem of fake news, the Economic Times stated the following piece of information with regards to the appointment of a grievance officer for India by WhatsApp:

Meeting one of the key demands that India had put on Whatsapp to curb fake messages that triggered mob killings, the Facebook-owned company has updated its website to reflect the appointment of a ‘Grievance Officer for India’.

The update mentions that users can seek help through the mobile app, send an email or write in to ‘Komal Lahiri’, who is based out of the US.