#Fact Check-Misleading Newspaper from Kerala stating ban on paper currency

Introduction

The unprecedented rise of social media, challenges with regional languages, and the heavy use of messaging apps like WhatsApp have all led to an increase in misinformation in India. False stories spread quickly and can cause significant harm, like political propaganda and health-related mis/misinformation. Programs that teach people how to use social media responsibly and attempt to check facts are essential, but they do not always connect with people deeply. Reading stories, attending lectures, and using tools that check facts are standard passive learning methods used in traditional media literacy programs. 

Adding game-like features to non-game settings is called "gamification," it could be a new and interesting way to answer this question. Gamification involves engaging people by making them active players instead of just passive consumers of information. Research shows that interactive learning improves interest, thinking skills, and memory. People can learn to recognise fake news safely by turning fact-checking into a game before encountering it in real life. A study by Roozenbeek and van der Linden (2019) showed that playing misinformation games can significantly enhance people's capacity to recognise and avoid false information.

Several misinformation-related games have been successfully implemented worldwide:

• The Bad News Game – This browser-based game by Cambridge University lets players step into the shoes of a fake news creator, teaching them how misinformation is crafted and spread (Roozenbeek & van der Linden, 2019).
• Factitious – A quiz game where users swipe left or right to decide whether a news headline is real or fake (Guess et al., 2020).
• Go Viral! – A game designed to inoculate people against COVID-19 misinformation by simulating the tactics used by fake news peddlers (van der Linden et al., 2020).

For programs to effectively combat misinformation in India, they must consider factors such as the responsible use of smartphones, evolving language trends, and common misinformation patterns in the country. Here are some key aspects to keep in mind:

1. Vernacular Languages

There should be games in Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, Telugu, and other major languages since that is how rumours spread in different areas and diverse cultural contexts. AI voice conversation and translation can help reduce literacy differences. Research shows that people are more likely to engage with and trust information in their native language (Pennycook & Rand, 2019).

2. Games Based on WhatsApp

Interactive tests and chatbot-powered games can educate consumers directly within the app they use most frequently since WhatsApp is a significant hub for false information. A game with a WhatsApp-like interface where players may feel like they are in real life, having to decide whether to avoid, check the facts of, or forward messages that are going viral could be helpful in India.

3. Detecting False Information

As part of a mobile-friendly game, players can pretend to be reporters or fact-checkers and have to prove stories that are going viral. They can do the same with real-life tools like reverse picture searches or reliable websites that check facts. Research shows that doing interactive tasks to find fake news makes people more aware of it over time (Lewandowsky et al., 2017).

4. Reward-Based Participation

Participation could be increased by providing rewards for finishing misleading challenges, such as badges, diplomas, or even incentives on mobile data. This might be easier to do if there are relationships with phone companies. Reward-based learning has made people more interested and motivated in digital literacy classes (Deterding et al., 2011).

5. Universities and Schools 

Educational institutions can help people spot false information by adding game-like elements to their lessons. Hamari et al. (2014) say that students are more likely to join and remember what they learn when there are competitive and interactive parts to the learning. Misinformation games can be used in media studies classes at schools and universities by using models to teach students how to check sources, spot bias, and understand the psychological tricks that misinformation campaigns use.

What Artificial Intelligence Can Do for Gamification

Artificial intelligence can tailor learning experiences to each player in false games. AI-powered misinformation detection bots could lead participants through situations tailored to their learning level, ensuring they are consistently challenged. Recent natural language processing (NLP) developments enable AI to identify nuanced misinformation patterns and adjust gameplay accordingly (Zellers et al., 2019). This could be especially helpful in India, where fake news is spread differently depending on the language and area.

Possible Opportunities

Augmented reality (AR) scavenger hunts for misinformation, interactive misinformation events, and educational misinformation tournaments are all examples of games that help fight misinformation. India can help millions, especially young people, think critically and combat the spread of false information by making media literacy fun and interesting. Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) in gamified treatments for misinformation could be a fascinating area of study in the future. AI-powered bots could mimic real-time cases of misinformation and give quick feedback, which would help students learn more.

Problems and Moral Consequences

While gaming is an interesting way to fight false information, it also comes with some problems that you should think about:

• Ethical Concerns: Games that try to imitate how fake news spreads must ensure players do not learn how to spread false information by accident.
• Scalability: Although worldwide misinformation initiatives exist, developing and expanding localised versions for India's varied language and cultural contexts provide significant challenges.
• Assessing Impact: There is a necessity for rigorous research approaches to evaluate the efficacy of gamified treatments in altering misinformation-related behaviours, keeping cultural and socio-economic contexts in the picture.

Conclusion 

A gamified approach can serve as an effective tool in India's fight against misinformation. By integrating game elements into digital literacy programs, it can encourage critical thinking and help people recognize misinformation more effectively. The goal is to scale these efforts, collaborate with educators, and leverage India's rapidly evolving technology to make fact-checking a regular practice rather than an occasional concern.

As technology and misinformation evolve, so must the strategies to counter them. A coordinated and multifaceted approach, one that involves active participation from netizens, strict platform guidelines, fact-checking initiatives, and support from expert organizations that proactively prebunk and debunk misinformation can be a strong way forward.

References

• Deterding, S., Dixon, D., Khaled, R., & Nacke, L. (2011). From game design elements to gamefulness: defining "gamification". Proceedings of the 15th International Academic MindTrek Conference.
• Guess, A., Nagler, J., & Tucker, J. (2020). Less than you think: Prevalence and predictors of fake news dissemination on Facebook. Science Advances.
• Hamari, J., Koivisto, J., & Sarsa, H. (2014). Does gamification work?—A literature review of empirical studies on gamification. Proceedings of the 47th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.
• Lewandowsky, S., Ecker, U. K., & Cook, J. (2017). Beyond misinformation: Understanding and coping with the “post-truth” era. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition.
• Pennycook, G., & Rand, D. G. (2019). Fighting misinformation on social media using “accuracy prompts”. Nature Human Behaviour.
• Roozenbeek, J., & van der Linden, S. (2019). The fake news game: actively inoculating against the risk of misinformation. Journal of Risk Research.
• van der Linden, S., Roozenbeek, J., Compton, J. (2020). Inoculating against fake news about COVID-19. Frontiers in Psychology.
• Zellers, R., Holtzman, A., Rashkin, H., Bisk, Y., Farhadi, A., Roesner, F., & Choi, Y. (2019). Defending against neural fake news. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems.

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Introduction

The .com boom led to a massive surge in the expansion of digitised and automated operations in all industries and organisations, which in turn beagle a wholesome transition to the digital age for all netizens, organisations and industries. All the big techs in today’s time were startups or not even in existence back when this boom began, but just in 3-4 decades, we see that a massive faction of the global population is dependent directly or indirectly on big techs for some or the other services. As the world of tech expands, so does the big tech, and hence, in the previous decades, we have seen some acquisitions by big tech companies. The biggest acquisition by tech was last seen in 2023 when the social media giant Facebook (Now META) acquired the famous messaging platform Whatsapp for $13 Billion, but now, almost after a decade, the world is ready to witness the biggest acquisition as Adobe confirms its plans to acquire Figma the leading web-first collaborative design platform.

Adobe - Figma Acquisition  

The illustrator developer Adobe has been the pioneer in developing designing tools since 1982. The founder of the company made a switch from the paper company Xerox, and hence, the operations and products of the company have been oriented towards paper and design. But as the company is already a pioneer in developing designing and editing tools, the impact of AI cannot be underestimated. Hence, this acquisition comes at a critical juncture in impacting the AI-driven product market.  

Adobe wants to use digital experiences to transform the world. Adobe provides the tools and platforms that power the digital economy today, and over the course of its existence, its innovations have positively impacted billions of people worldwide. Adobe continues to invent and modify categories, having revolutionised photography and creative expression with Photoshop, pioneered electronic documents with PDF, and created the digital marketing category with Adobe Experience Cloud.

The goals of Figma are to facilitate visual teamwork and provide accessibility to design for all. The company, which was founded in 2012 by Dylan Field and Evan Wallace, was a pioneer in online product design. Thanks to multi-player workflows, advanced design systems, and a large, expandable developer environment, it is now enabling collaboration for anybody designing interactive mobile and online applications. Millions of fresh designers and developers, as well as a devoted student base, have been drawn to Figma.

By working together, Adobe and Figma will transform how people create and work, spur innovation on the web, improve product design, and uplift communities of creators, designers, and developers throughout the world. The combined business will have the capacity to create major value for clients, investors, and the industry, in addition to a sizable and rapidly expanding market potential.

Key Features of Acquisition

The most expensive acquisition this century has caught the attention of a lot of companies and regulatory authorities across the world. The key features of the deal are as follows: 

• Reimagining the Future of Creativity and Productivity: The designing giant Adobe and Figma coming together will unlock new potential for creativity and productivity as both of the companies create tools which are widely used; hence, they understand the customer’s requirements and expectations, thus making a path for creativity and productivity in term of new services and applications.    
• Accelerating Creativity on the Web: Adobe's Creative Cloud technologies will be delivered online more quickly thanks to Figma's web-based, multi-player features, which will increase productivity and accessibility to the creative process for more people. The current difficulty facing creators is producing an ever-increasing amount of material while working closely with an ever-increasing number of stakeholders. With its widespread use, the web is now a tool that facilitates collaborative creation in teams.
• Advancing Product Design: All parties involved in the product design process, including designers, product managers, and developers, will gain from the integration of Adobe's robust imaging, photography, illustration, video, 3D, and font technologies into the Figma platform. Because digital applications are integral to both our personal and professional lives, the product design sector is experiencing rapid expansion. 
• Inspiring and empowering the designer and developer community: The company's ongoing innovation has been fueled by the dynamic creative community at Adobe. With its vast and expanding ecosystem, Figma boasts a fervent community that creates and shares everything from templates to plug-ins to lessons. By uniting the communities of Figma and Adobe, designers and developers will be able to harness the potential of collaborative design in the future. By 2025, Figma's addressable market will reach a total of $16.5 billion. With best-in-class net dollar retention of more than 150 percent, the company is predicted to add around $200 million in net new ARR this year, topping $400 million in total ARR by the end of 2022. Figma has established a productive, rapidly expanding company with operating cash flows that are positive and gross margins of over 90%.

Conclusion

The acquisition of the decade is going to be under heavy scrutiny and checks under various laws in different countries and is expected to be given the green light soon, this merger and acquisition case study will act as a precedent for such high-value acquisitions. Nearly 10 years ago, we saw the last biggest acquisition, where Meta acquired WhatsApp for $13 Bn. As the world of tech moves forward, we will be witnessing more of such M&As in the future, but in such moments, we should be cautious about how our data is handled and transferred by the other company, always make sure you keep a check on your digital rights and responsibilities, because ultimately we are the consumers of the cyberspace.

References

• https://news.adobe.com/news/news-details/2022/Adobe-to-Acquire-Figma/default.aspx
• https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/26/regulator_delays_adobes_20bn_buy/
• https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/adobes-deal-acquire-figma-under-threat-eu-regulators-ft-2023-06-20/'

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Introduction

The most significant change seen in the Indian cyber laws this year was the passing of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, in the parliament. DPDP Act is the first concrete form of legislation focusing on the protection of Digital Personal Data of Indian netizens in all aspects; the act is analogous to what GDPR is for Europe. The act lays down heavy compliance mandates for the intermediaries and data fiduciaries, this has made it difficult for the tech companies a lot of policy, legal and technical changes have to be made in order to implement the act to its complete efficiency. Recently, the big techs have addressed a letter to the Minister and Minister of State of Meity to extend the implementation timeline of the act. In other news, the union cabinet has given the green light for the much-awaited MoC with Japan focused on establishing a long-term Semiconductor Supply Chain Partnership. 

Letter to Meity

The lobby of the big techs represented by a Trade Body named the Big Tech Asia Internet Coalition (AIC) this week wrote to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity), addressing it to the Minister Ashwini Vaishnav and Minister of State (MoS) Rajeev Chandershekhra recommending a 12-18 month extension on the implementation of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act. This request comes at a time when the government has been voicing its urgency to implement the act in order to safeguard Indian data at the earliest. The trade body represented big names, including Meta, Google, Microsoft, Apple and many more. These big techs essentially comprise the segment recognised under the DPDP as the Significant Data Fiduciaries due to the sheer volume of data processed, hosted, stored, etc. In the protective sense, the act has been designed to focus on preventing the exploitation of personal data of Indian netizens by the big techs, hence, they form an integral part of the Indian Data Ecosystem.  The following reasons/complications concerning the implementation of the act were highlighted in the letter:

• Unrealistic Timelines: The AIC expressed that the current timeline for the implementation of the act seems unrealistic for the big techs to establish technological, policy and legal mechanisms to be in compliance with section 5 of the act, which talks about the Obligations of a Data Fiduciary and the particular notice to be shared with the data principles in accordance with the act. 
• Technical Requirements: Members of AIC expressed that the duration for the implementation of the act is much less in comparison to the time required by the tech companies to set up/deploy relevant technical critical infrastructure, SoPs and capacity building for the same. This will cause a major hindrance in establishing the efficiency of the act.
• Data Rights:  Right to Erasure, Correction, Deletion, Nominate, etc., are guaranteed under the DPDP, but the big techs are not sure about the efficient implementation of these rights and hence will need fundamental changes in the technology architecture of their platform, thus expressing concern of the early implementation of the act. 
• Equivalency to GDPR: The DPDP is taken to be congruent to the European GDPR, but the DPDP focuses on a few more aspects, such as cross-border data flow and compliance mandates for the right to erasure, hence a lot of GDPR-compliant big techs also need to establish more robust mechanisms to maintain compliance to Indian DPDP.     

Indo-Japan MoC

A Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) on the Japan-India Semiconductor Supply Chain Partnership was signed in July 2023 between the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) of India and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) of Japan. This information was shared with the Union Cabinet, which is led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Ministry of Commerce (MoC) aims to expand collaboration between Japan and India in order to improve the semiconductor supply chain. This is because semiconductors are critical to the development of industries and digital technologies. The Parties agree that the MoC will take effect on the date of signature and be in effect for five years. Bilateral cooperation on business-to-business and G2G levels on ways to develop a robust semiconductor supply chain and make use of complementary skills. The cooperation is aimed at harnessing indigenous talent and creating opportunities for higher employment avenues. 

MeitY's purpose also includes promoting international cooperation within bilateral and regional frameworks in the frontier and emerging fields of information technology. MeitY has engaged in Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs), Memorandums of Covenants (MoCs), and Agreements with counterpart organisations/agencies of other nations with the aim of fostering bilateral collaboration and information sharing. Additionally, MeitY aims to establish supply chain resilience, which would enable India to become a reliable partner. An additional step towards mutually advantageous semiconductor-related commercial prospects and collaborations between India & Japan is the strengthening of mutual collaboration between Japanese and Indian enterprises through this Memorandum of Understanding. The “India-Japan Digital Partnership” (IJDP), which was introduced during PM Modi's October 2018 visit to Japan, was created in light of the two countries' complementary and synergistic efforts. Its goal is to advance both current areas of cooperation and new initiatives within the scope of S&T/ICT cooperation, with a particular emphasis on “Digital ICT Technologies."

Conclusion 

As we move ahead into the digital age, it is pertinent to be aware and educated about the latest technological advancements, new forms of cybercrimes and threats and legal aspects of digital rights and responsibilities, whether it is the recommendation to extend the implementation of DPDP or the Indo-Japan MoC, both of these instances impact the Indian netizen and his/her interests. Hence, the indigenous netizen needs to develop a keen interest in the protection of the Indian cyber-ecosystem to create a safer future. In our war against technology, our best weapon is technology and awareness, thus implementing the same in our daily digital lifestyles and routines is a must.  

References

• https://www.eetindia.co.in/cabinet-approves-moc-on-japan-india-semiconductor-supply-chain-partnership/
• https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/startup/trade-body-representing-big-tech-urges-govt-to-extend-dpdp-act-implementation-by-1-5-years-11605431.html
• https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://www.eetindia.co.in/cabinet-approves-moc-on-japan-india-semiconductor-supply-chain-partnership/&ct=ga&cd=CAEYACoTOTI3Mzg4NzEyODgwMjI2ODk0MDIaOTBiYzUxNmI5YTRjYTE1NTpjb206ZW46VVM&usg=AOvVaw2lEO7-cIBZ_ox1xV39LGLs

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