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Fact Check! No, Govt is Not Giving Free Laptops, Beware of Viral But Fake Notice

July 19, 2022
Bharat Times

A message with a link is going viral that claims that the Ministry of Education is giving away 5,00,000 free laptops to students. The fact-checking department of the Press Information Bureau (PIB) has now informed that the message is fake and no such scheme is being offered by the government.

PIB, through their fact check Twitter handle, shared a screenshot of the viral post and in the caption and wrote, “A text message with a website link is circulating on social media which claims that @EduMinOfIndia is offering 5,00,000 free laptops to all students.” The caption further read, “The circulated link is #Fake. The government is not running any such scheme.”

The message also tells the receivers to click open the link that reads: “to check eligibility.” Apart from the message being fake, it can also be a trap for users to get their personal details phished. The PIB Fact Check also warned netizens of any such messages claiming free goodies.

This is not the first time that such a message has circulated on social media. Last year, in August, the PIB Fact Check busted another fake news. The message read, “The Ministry of Education has a distribution schedule for laptops to be given out to families to help support virtual learning.” The PIB also warned people against sharing such messages and spreading them further.

Such messages have the ability to create a bubble of information that may be harmful to the readers. A term that has become quite popular in the era of fake news dissemination is “WhatsApp University.” It is a pejorative term that highlights the issue of fake news dissemination through WhatsApp. Such messages create a division of opinions based on flimsy facts and one should avoid forwarding or paying heed to them.

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