Fake news: COVA trains community volunteers in fact-checking skills

Problem-solving exercises, and hands-on sessions enabled participants to identify fake content, spot edited photos/videos, and understand how AI generates fake news

Hyderabad: To spread awareness on fake news, the Confederation of Voluntary Organizations (COVA) Peace Network on Sunday conducted CHECKIT, a programme to train community volunteers in practical fact-checking skills.

The training covered understanding how and why fake news is created, types of fake content- text, images, videos and AI-generated deepfakes; basic fact-checking tools and image verification techniques.

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Problem-solving exercises and hands-on sessions enabled participants to identify common types of fake content, spot edited photos/videos and understand how AI generates fake news.

Participants worked in six teams to tackle real-world examples across various domains including politics, faith, legal issues, social concerns, financial frauds, consumer scams, and medical misinformation.

Experts and facilitators included Bharath Guniganti of Factly, Nabeel K Adeni, EnLeap XP Canada, Moinuddin Ali Khan, Advipract, Taher Hussain Sheeraz, Advocate and Cybercrime Expert and Mohd Shadab of Momentum AI, GV Rao, president, Telangana Developers Association.