Building Vasthavam: Accountability in Kerala's Media and Politics

Recently, the elections concluded in Kerala and a new government is in power. The front I supported lost, and honestly, that is completely fine. That is how democracies work. But what is not fine is what I have been seeing across social media handles belonging to media organizations and politicians.

There has been a troubling surge in problematic posts that blatantly peddle misinformation, outright lies, or heavily misleading facts. What often happens is that media houses post these sensational headlines, farm the engagement, and then quietly delete them once they get called out. But by then, the damage is already done. The secondary content like WhatsApp forwards, Instagram Reels, and screenshots quoting this misinformation continues to circulate and manipulate people. There is no institutional memory and no accountability.

We all remember the Cambridge Analytica scandal. It showed us how algorithms can invade our free thought and free will. A democracy is only as good as its voters, and if the masses aren't well-informed, we simply won't elect good people.

This is exactly why I decided to build Vasthavam (വാസ്തവം, Malayalam for "reality" or "the truth of things").

What is Vasthavam?

I want a platform to make these media houses and politicians accountable and answerable. Vasthavam is a Kerala-focused civic technology platform designed to act as a permanent fact-checking hub so people can verify the claims they see online before getting manipulated.

It is built to do three core things:

Fact-check claims made by Malayalam news outlets and politicians, keeping a permanent public archive even if the original post is deleted.
Track and score news outlet credibility across multiple transparent dimensions, not just a single arbitrary score. We will measure factual accuracy, correction transparency, and context accuracy.
Hold politicians accountable for their statements, promises, and Assembly speeches. We will track their flip-flops and whether their promises are actually fulfilled.

How it will work

The platform is crowdsourced by default but enforces a trust hierarchy. Just like Community Notes on X, community notes on Vasthavam will only surface when enough cross-partisan users agree on the facts. We will prioritize transparency over absolute certainty. Verdicts will show their sources, reasoning, and history.

In the coming days, I will be rolling out the MVP which includes headline submission with image uploads and permanent archiving, alongside basic community notes. Over time, we will introduce user reputation ladders, dynamic scoring, and deep integrations with Assembly speeches.

Call for Contributors

I cannot do this alone. I welcome anyone who would like to contribute and make this platform better. Whether you are a developer, a researcher, or just an active citizen who cares about the truth, join me.

All I want is for people to be better informed. When we are equipped with the truth, collectively, we all win. You can check out the live project at vasthavam.vercel.app.