Babita Ji from Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah is one of the most loved and famous characters on Indian television. The show has been running for the last 11 years and the actor even posted a picture of herself, proudly announcing the completion of 2900 episodes. This is truly historic! Spider-Man's uncle said with great power comes great responsibility. And Munmun Dutta, the actor who plays Babita Ji, has acted responsibly in every sense of the term.

The thing is that over the past few weeks, some fake TikTok accounts of the actress have been doing the rounds on the Internet and this has truly worried her. And taking to her Instagram account, she shared a screenshot of the same and also wrote a message on her Instagram story- "If I ever decide to come on TikTok, I will let you all know here first." (sic)

Have a look at the screenshot of the fake accounts first:

And here comes the message:

Well, hope all those people who were following her on these fake pages now unfollow her immediately. Follow her on Instagram for her gorgeous pictures and keep watching her iconic show and her superlative performance.

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As the deadly coronavirus infection spreads fast in India and elsewhere, even faster is the spread of fake news regarding the pandemic and experts warn this 'infodemic' can have huge economic costs for companies across the world in addition to health concerns for the public at large. While authorities have announced severe penal actions for those spreading fake news regarding this pandemic, which has already caused nearly 2 lakh deaths globally with more than 28 lakh infections since its outbreak in China last December, widespread misinformation surrounding the disease has seen people drinking disinfectants and industrial alcohol while trying various rumoured treatments.

False claims and fake news, mostly forwarded through social media platforms, have also led to several cases of religion-based attacks, hate speeches and other discriminatory activities, while cyber frauds are also on the rise with scamsters seeking to take advantage of the crisis situation. In addition to the damages caused to public health and societal behaviour, experts warn the undeterred wave of fake news poses a huge risk to corporates, for whom it becomes difficult at times to filter out the right information that is crucial for them to ensure success of their business continuity, especially when almost the entire world is locked down.

Farah Lalani, who is a community creator for media, entertainment and information industries at the Geneva-based World Economic Forum (WEF), said businesses need to be proactive about calling out misinformation that is spreading about their brand, directing customers to official channels and making sure there is always clear and up to date information on all their social accounts. "While bad actors, fraudsters, and uninformed users can spread fabricated or misleading information, if businesses collaborate closely with the entire media ecosystem and regulatory bodies, they can start to work together to solve this very challenging problem," she told PTI.

In India, some organisations including industry bodies and advocacy groups have begun compiling official and credible information about the COVID-19 fight and the ongoing lockdown to help companies in their preparedness for tackling the crisis. Leading advocacy group Chase India, which was among the first to start this practice right from the initial days of the COVID-19 crisis emerging as a major threat in the country, has been sending across multiple daily updates to its clients, including on the latest actions taken by the central and state governments and also on initiatives being taken by various corporates.

Experts said the correct information is necessary for companies to help them understand, analyse and then implement various new guidelines being issued by the central and state governments. "In today's circumstances, besides the current public health crisis of COVID-19 and socio-economic impact related to climate change, one of the biggest concerns is legitimate and timely sourcing of information," Chase India's co-founder and Executive Vice President Manash K Neog said.

"As a public policy consultancy, our key challenge during the pre-lockdown phase was to mitigate frenzy around rumours of lockdown for our clients as it was creating panic for the operational teams of clients. "Further to that, we have institutionalised mechanisms such as our hourly and daily COVID-19 advisory trackers for the central and state governments to support clients with timely and authentic information basis which they are able to better plan their business continuity strategies," he added.

According to experts, companies are working hard to ensure timely access to right information as costs could be too high for them if they fall for some misinformation and in such a situation the role of media is also very important. Releasing a new survey recently, which found that just about one-fourth of the consumers in India currently pay for news but nearly two-thirds are willing to pay, the WEF said the current coronavirus challenge further emphasises the indispensable role that the media plays in society today.

With social media becoming the main platform for spread of false claims, giants like Facebook and Twitter have also begun deleting such posts and taking other actions. Some of the posts deleted on such grounds include those of public figures as well, the most famous being posts shared by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro in which he had claimed anti-malaria prescription drug hydroxychloroquine was an effective treatment for COVID-19.

Twitter had also deleted a post by Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro in which he had apparently endorsed a "brew" for eliminating infectious genes. Various social media platforms have also imposed several restrictions on advertisements claiming various cures for COVID-19, while hate content regarding the pandemic is also being dealt with sternly. However, all these steps have not been able to totally eradicate the fake news flow, which the World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described as 'infodemic' in the context of the novel coronavirus.

"We are not just fighting an epidemic, we are fighting an infodemic," he said, referring to fake news as something that "spreads faster and more easily than this virus". United Nations' chief Antonio Guterres too said last month that an "infodemic of misinformation" was also an enemy that we all need to fight while battling COVID-19.

"To overcome the coronavirus, we need to urgently promote 'facts and science' and 'hope and solidarity' over despair and division," he said.

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Former Brazilian footballer Ronaldinho pleaded his innocence while speaking for the first time after spending 32 days in a Paraguayan prison. The former Barcelona forward is currently under house arrest in a hotel in Asuncion after he was arrested along with his cavalry for entering the country with forged documents.

Ronaldinho has insisted he didn't know his documents were illegal and also stated he showed full cooperation with the authorities in the aftermath of the airport fiasco.

"We were totally surprised to learn that the documents were not legal," Ronaldinho told ABC Color. "Since then our intention has been to collaborate with the justice system to clarify the facts.

"From that moment until today, we have explained everything and facilitated everything that has been requested of us.

"It was a tough blow, I never imagined that I would go through such a situation. All my life I have sought to reach the highest professional level and bring joy to people with my football," he added.

Ronaldinho also revealed what his plans are after he is allowed to go back to his home nation once investigation ends.

"The first thing will be to give a big kiss to my mother, who has lived through this difficult phase since the start of COVID-19 pandemic, at her home."

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The virtual war between WAGs Rebekah Vardy, 38, and Coleen Rooney, 34, is far from over. It is learnt that Rebekah, wife of Leicester City footballer Jamie Vardy, wants a public apology from Coleen, the wife of former England captain Wayne Rooney, for accusing her in October of leaking fake stories to the press via social media.

While both ladies are currently locked in a legal battle, it is learnt that they will have an arbitration meeting on Zoom this week in a bid to avoid a costly court case, reported British tabloid, The Sun.

"Becky [Rebekah] is adamant she's done nothing wrong and has told her team she wants a public apology," an insider told the newspaper. "She was hurt that Coleen went straight on social media to lay the blame at her door, rather than speaking to her privately. She has maintained her innocence throughout and doesn't want this to be brushed under the carpet without Coleen publicly apologising," added the source.

The two used to be good friends before Coleen claimed in October that Rebekah's Instagram account had been leaking false stories to the press. Subsequently, Rebekah endured a lot of abuse on social media.

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Representational Image

To stop false news from spreading on its platform, Facebook has said it put in place a three-pronged strategy that constitutes removing accounts and content that violate its policies, reducing the distribution of inauthentic content and informing people by giving them more context on the posts they see.

Another part of its strategy in some countries is partnering with third-party fact-checkers to review and rate the accuracy of articles and posts on Facebook, Tessa Lyons, a Facebook product manager on News Feed focused on false news, said in a statement on Thursday.

The social media giant is facing criticism for its role in enabling political manipulation in several countries around the world. It has also come under the scanner for allegedly fuelling ethnic conflicts owing to its failure to stop the deluge of hate-filled posts against the disenfranchised Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar.

"False news is bad for people and bad for Facebook. We're making significant investments to stop it from spreading and to promote high-quality journalism and news literacy," Lyons said.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday told the European Parliament leaders that the social networking giant is trying to plug loopholes across its services, including curbing fake news and political interference on its platform in the wake of upcoming elections globally, including in India.

Lyons said Facebook's three-pronged strategy roots out the bad actors that frequently spread fake stories.

"It dramatically decreases the reach of those stories. And it helps people stay informed without stifling public discourse," Lyons added.

Although false news does not violate Facebook's Community Standards, it often violates the social network's polices in other categories, such as spam, hate speech or fake accounts, which it removes remove.

"For example, if we find a Facebook Page pretending to be run by Americans that's actually operating out of Macedonia, that violates our requirement that people use their real identities and not impersonate others. So we'll take down that whole Page, immediately eliminating any posts they made that might have been false," Lyons explained.

Apart from this, Facebook is also using machine learning to help its teams detect fraud and enforce its policies against spam.

"We now block millions of fake accounts every day when they try to register," Lyons added.

A lot of the misinformation that spreads on Facebook is financially motivated, much like email spam in the 90s, the social network said.

If spammers can get enough people to click on fake stories and visit their sites, they will make money off the ads they show.

"We're figuring out spammers' common tactics and reducing the distribution of those kinds of stories in News Feed. We've started penalizing clickbait, links shared more frequently by spammers, and links to low-quality web pages, also known as 'ad farms'," Lyons said.

"We also take action against entire Pages and websites that repeatedly share false news, reducing their overall News Feed distribution," Lyons said.

Facebook said it does not want to make money off of misinformation or help those who create it profit, and so such publishers are not allowed to run ads or use its monetisation features like Instant Articles.

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In a viral video that left the internet in splits, a dog exposed the owner's fake handstand pose. The video that went viral on Facebook shows a woman pretending to do handstand by lying down and pressing her hands against the wall, while a man on a chair reading a newspaper is seen sitting besides her.

The nearly-perfect clip seemed convincing until the act was exposed when a dog made an appearance in the picture. At that point, the viewers realised that the man and the woman were simply lying on the floor and the handstand pose was created by tweaking the camera angle and successfully tricking people into believing that the pose was legitimate.

Paulinho Martins, who posted this video on Facebook on Tuesday, said in the captions, "Everything was going well, until the dog ruined everything." The video has received over 6.1 million views with more than 48,000 likes and was shared over 225,000 times.

Amid hilarious reactions, users commenting on the post said that they would love to try it out with their friends while one user commented, "Is that spiderdog?" Another user said, "It is not that bad to cheat, well done!" while one more comment read, "It is absolutely obvious, when he touched his glasses. Newspaper fell on him."

What do you think of the video?

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As 690 new COVID-19 cases were reported on Wednesday, Singapore warned against spreading fake news and videos about migrant workers, saying this could disturb the law and order situation in dormitories where a large number of foreign workers have tested positive. A total of 15,641 people, including 12,183 migrant workers, have contracted the virus in the city-state so far.

Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam warned that such videos can lead to serious law and order incidents. He said the authorities are watching individuals who spread the videos "very carefully". Warning those spreading fake news maliciously, he said, they will be charged if a crime was committed. Hundreds of thousands of foreign workers have been barred from leaving their cramped dormitories to curb the spread of COVID-19, according to a Channel News Asia report on Wednesday.

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What percent of the content on the internet do you believe is true?  While there is certainly lots of reliable information online, it’s getting increasingly difficult to tell the genuine from the rumor-mill, the real from the fake news. And it may be getting harder. Why? Because of deepfakes: highly convincing, AI-powered video and audio clips that could quite literally put words in the mouth of someone you know. This is a big problem for our society. While technology companies have recently taken a stand against it and others are developing new tools to fight it, there are things you and I can do today to stand up to the problems caused by deepfakes.

A fake account of Mukesh Ambani on Twitter has gained thousands of followers in a matter of days. Here's how we spotted the fake account.

According to the video, the passengers claim for being charged thrice the normal fare and states that they were then 'packed in' violating all social distancing norms.

Imports of counterfeit and pirated goods are worth nearly half a trillion dollars a year, or around 2.5% of global imports, with US, Italian and French brands the hardest hit and many of the proceeds going to organised crime, according to a new report by the OECD and the EU’s Intellectual Property Office.

Nearly one in five mobile phones and one in four video game consoles shipped internationally is fake, as a growing trade in counterfeit IT and communications hardware weighs on consumers, manufacturers and public finances, according to a new OECD report.

This may come as a surprise to most serious policymakers, but here’s a fact: not all that is “news” is fact-checked information. Worse, non-facts are frequently introduced into stories and passed off as facts. Welcome to the new information world. It is unsettling, and hardly augurs well for robust policymaking. So what can be done about it?

French regulator says agency failed to verify false story that sent Vinci shares down 18%

The former Fox CEO commits millions to battle against disinformation

Paris Saint-Germain stars continuously mocked Borussia Dortmund wonderkid Erling Haaland during and after their Champions League win over the Bundesliga side. 

JEFF POWELL: My long-range admiration for Courtney Lawes as a man has been cemented by his principled stand against the fake allegations that criticism of Meghan Markle is racist.

Azalea retweeted a clip from The Wendy Williams Show, in which the host accused her of having a 'fake body,' writing: 'Who's the crack head in the half way house with the gossip show thing?'

Ryan Lochte apologized to the people of Brazil and his fellow teammates, explained why he made 'over-exaggerated claims' about an armed robbery and shared his hope that he can still compete.

ALISON BOSHOFF: Fern Britton, 62, remains greatly loved as a reassuringly 'safe', mumsy figure. At the centre of her life was her marriage to Phil Vickery. The couple married in High Wycombe in May 2000.

The 'news story' about the case of mistaken identity was reported during the show on Thursday morning, with the Australian presenters giggling about the bizarre tale.

MasterChef judge George Calombaris enraged an elderly neighbour when he built a backyard gym behind his Melbourne mansion that she called a 'monstrosity'. Now he has added a rooftop hedge.

Siberian husky Houdini, 10, appeared to love the attention he was getting from a fake hand he found on the back of a car during a walk in Vancouver, Canada.

Wondering how to pick the right fake tan to suit your skin? We have tested the newest products in a quest for the top tans this summer...

Binky has enlisted the help of make-up artist Buster Knight to achieve Kylie Jenner's look by using a few cosmetic tricks.

JEFF POWELL: My long-range admiration for Courtney Lawes as a man has been cemented by his principled stand against the fake allegations that criticism of Meghan Markle is racist.

President Donald Trump claimed that reports of North Korea's Kim Jong Un being gravely ill was 'fake news' from CNN during Thursday's daily COVID-19 briefing

The president began what could be the most significant day so far in Robert Mueller's Russia probe pre-emptively lashing out at the special counsel's office in a tweetstorm.

A school girl and her family are devastated after their little pet dog Indy was savagely mauled to death by an 80-kilo canine while its owner 'got away with murder'.

Jennelle Gordon, 37, from California, was a victim of sex trafficking at the age of 19 and faked her own death to escape. She has since bounced back thanks to tantra and now helps other victims.

Brianna Ridge says she found the letter in a toy bought from a Walmart in Wasilla. Addressed to kids, it says Santa, reindeer, and elves aren't real and that presents come from parents.

The ride-hailing firm was stripped of its licence to operate in London yesterday after Transport for London found 14,000 rides had been provided by drivers using bogus identification.

No foreign holiday doesn't have to mean no tan with these fabulous faux glows 

A con artist who hoodwinked four New South Wales judges with sham medical reports claiming he had terminal cancer is set to be jailed.

Irish singer Niall Horan has gone from heartthrob to heart breaker. 

Sandro Botticelli's 400-year-old painting of the Madonna was thought to be a crude copy but experts have now found it to be the original. It will be displayed at the National Museum in Cardiff.

The pop diva, 61, has blamed her ex-husband Guy Ritchie for her infamous dodgy fake British accent after remarking she was 'horrified' when she heard her voice.

In honor of US Navy Chief Petty Officer Charles Keating IV, the US special operations community created a "workout of the day."Keating, a 31-year-old Navy SEAL, was killed battling ISIS fighters in Iraq on May 3, 2016.Service members who took part in the exercise in Kuwait shared non-alcoholic "near" beer, the only authorized drink resembling the alcoholic beverage in the country, from an emptied ammunition can.Here's what the "Chuck Heavy" exercise consists of.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.Members of the US Special Operations Joint Task Force stationed in Kuwait conducted a training session dubbed "Chuck Heavy" in honor of a US Navy SEAL who was killed four years ago this week during a firefight with ISIS fighters in Iraq.US Navy Chief Petty Officer Charles Keating IV,

Susanna Reid reveals how a fake tan disaster left her embarrassed to leave her room. British TV presenter opted for artificial suntan in preparation for presenting the Good Morning Britain Oscars special.

It was close to 80F when she and her family left the Hawaian island of Kauai on Monday. So the 35-year-old actress, who looked a little down, bundled up as she left eaterie Craig's on Friday evening.

Creating fears about shortages of products in shops to 'spread uncertainty' and undermine the West would be straight out of the 'Russian toolbox', one British official said.

Viktoria Aimetdinova, 23, strangled, stabbed and burned baby Bogdan Gafner in a forest 'to save world from apocalypses'. She has been sentenced to forced psychiatric treatment in Russia.

The victim Maria from Russia sought help from her hospital and an online forum but was refused an appointment due to the lockdown and a ban on nonessential consultations.

President Donald Trump tweeted a campaign ad on Monday that contained a racially-charged attack on Joe Biden and features former President Barack Obama.

Social media users compared a picture appearing to show Trump with strong fake tan lines with everything from the movie Cats to Mrs. Doubtfire to Justin Trudeau in blackface.

The 44-year-old actor plays struggling Rick Dalton in Tarantino's latest film, which explores the golden age of cinema at the end of the 1960s, and DiCaprio was required to transform his face.

If you thought supermodel and reality star Kendall Jenner had recently joined TikTok, it seems that was not exactly the case.

UFC star Nate Diaz was not impressed by Conor McGregor's first round victory over Donald Cerrone at UFC 246. The welterweight has fought the Irishman twice before with one win a piece.

Hassan Norouzi, who is a spokesman for the Iranian parliament's judicial committee, said 'spreading lies' is punishable by one to three years in prison with flogging, in line with Shariah law.

A man named Joey tweeted his 'tip' for men who think women are giving them a fake number. He wrote: 'Read it back to them incorrectly. See if they correct you.'