The EconomistJanuary 27th 2018 Business 551“T
HERE’S too much sensationalism,
misinformation and polarisation in
the world today,” lamented Mark Zucker-
berg, the boss of Facebook, recently. To im-
prove things, the world’s largest social net-
work will cut the amount of news in users’
feeds by a fifth and attempt to make the re-
mainder more reliable by prioritising in-
formation from sources which users think
are trustworthy.
Many publishers are complaining: they
worry that their content will show up less
in users’ newsfeeds, reducing clicks and
advertising revenues. Butthe bigger pro-
blem with Facebook’slatest moves may be
that they are unlikely to achieve much—at
least if the flourishing of fake news on
WhatsApp, the messaging app which Face-
book bought in 2014 for $19bn, is any guide.
In more ways than one, WhatsApp is
the opposite of Facebook. Whereas posts
on Facebook can be seen by all of a user’s
friends, WhatsApp’s messages are en-
crypted. Whereas Facebook’s newsfeeds
are curated by algorithms that try to maxi-
mise the time users spend on the service,
WhatsApp’s stream of messages is solely
generated by users. And whereas Face-
book requiresa fast connection, Whats-
App is not very data-hungry.
As a result, WhatsApp has become a so-
cial network to rival Facebook in many
places, particularly in poorer countries. Of
the service’s more than 1.3bn monthly us-
ers, 120m live in Brazil and 200m in India
(see chart). With the exceptions of Ameri-
ca, China, Japan and South Korea, Whats-
App is among the top three most-used so-
cial apps in all big countries.
Most of the 55bn messages sent every
day are harmless, but WhatsApp’s scale at-
tracts all sorts of mischief-makers. In South
Africa the service is often used to spread
false allegations of civic corruption and
hoax warnings of storms, fires and other
natural disasters. In Brazil rumours about
people travel quickly: a mob recently set
upon a couple theysuspected of being
child traffickers based on chatter on
WhatsApp (the couple escaped).
But it is in India where WhatsApp has
had the most profound effect. It is now part
of the country’s culture: many older peo-
ple use it and drive younger ones crazy by
forwarding messages indiscriminately—
sometimes with tragic results. Last year,
seven men in the eastern state of Jhar-
khand were murdered by angry villagers
in two separate incidents after rumours cir-culated on WhatsApp warning of kidnap-
pers in the area. In a gruesome coda to the
incident, pictures and videos from the
lynching also went viral.
It is unclear how exactly such misinfor-
mation spreads, not leastbecause traffic is
encrypted. “It’s not that we have chosen
not to look at it. It isimpossible,” says Fi-
lippo Menczer of Indiana University’s Ob-
servatory on Social Media, which tracks
the spread of fake news on Twitter and oth-
er online services. Misinformation on
WhatsApp is identified only when it
jumps onto another social-media platform
or, as in India, leads to tragic consequences.
Some patterns are becoming clear, how-
ever. Misinformation often spreads via
group chats, which people join voluntarily
and whose members—family, colleagues,
friends, neighbours—they trust. That
makes rumours more believable. Misinfor-
mation does not always come in the form
of links, but often as forwarded texts and
videos, which look the same as personal
messages, lending them a further veneer
of legitimacy. And since users often receive
the same message in multiple groups, con-
stant repetition makes them more believ-
able yet.
Predictably, propagandists have em-
ployed WhatsApp as a potent tool. In
“Dreamers”, a book about young Indians,
Snigdha Poonam, a journalist, describes
visiting a political party’s “social media
war room” in 2014. Workers spent their
days “packaging as many insults as possi-
ble into one WhatsApp message”, which
would then be sent out to party members
to be propagated within their own net-
works. Similar tactics are increasingly visi-
ble elsewhere. Last month’s conference in
South Africa of the African National Con-
gress, at which delegates elected a new
party leader, saw a flood of messages
claiming victory for and conspiracy by
both factions. With elections due in Brazil
and Mexico this year, and in India next
year, expect more such shenanigans.
Governmentsand WhatsApp itself are
keenly aware of the problem. In India au-
thorities now regularlyblock WhatsApp to
stop the spread of rumours, for instance ofsalt shortages. Regulators in Kenya, Malay-
sia and South Africa have mooted the idea
of holding moderators of group chats lia-
ble for false information in their groups.
WhatsApp is working on changing the ap-
pearance of forwarded messages in the
hope that visual cues will help users tell
the difference between messages from
friends and those of unknown prove-
nance. But ultimatelyit will be down to us-
ers to be more responsible and not blindly
forward messages they receive.
It is as yet unclear whether fake news
on Facebook will be less of a problem after
it changes its algorithms. The experience of
WhatsApp suggests, however, thatthe con-
cerns will persist. “Even with all these
countermeasures, the battle will never
end,” Samidh Chakrabarti, a Facebook ex-
ecutive admitted on January 22nd. “Misin-
formation campaigns are not amateur op-
erations. They are professionalised and
constantly try to game the system.” 7Social mediaMark Zuckerberg’s
other headache
WhatsApp shows that Facebook’s
efforts to fight fake news may failOnwards and appwardsSource: StatistaIndia, WhatsApp monthly active users, m2013 14 15 16 17050100150200A
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