Mumbai — India has asked Facebook-owned WhatsApp messenger to take steps to prevent the circulation of false texts and provocative content, which have led to a series of lynchings and mob beatings across the country in the past few months. With more than 200-million users in India, WhatsApp’s biggest market in the world, false news and videos circulating on the messaging app have become a new headache for social media giant Facebook, which is already grappling with a privacy scandal. So far this year, false messages about child abductors on WhatsApp have helped to trigger mass beatings of more than a dozen people in India — at least three of whom have died. In addition, five people were beaten to death by a mob on Sunday in a fresh incident of lynching in India’s western state of Maharashtra on suspicions that they were child abductors. "Deep disapproval of such developments has been conveyed to the senior management of WhatsApp and they have been advised that necessary remedial mea...
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