With other 2 billion users globally, WhatsApp is one of the most popular apps used. With affordable cellular data services combined with an influx of decent budget phones that can support WhatsApp the usage of this Facebook-owned platform is ubiquitous in Africa. But fake news remains a big issue.
All of my friends use WhatsApp and that’s a great thing, it doesn’t matter if they have iPhones as Apple’s iMessage platform is not a sensation. The service has even replaced traditional news outlets as people get quick updates, memes, jokes but this brings in some mis-information that spreads like wildfire.
I will be right if I said that social media especially WhatsApp has had a profound impact on Ugandan culture, and as is often the case with any messaging service that has such a sizeable install base, there are a lot of bad actors spreading fake news on the platform. It’s easy to share misinformation on WhatsApp groups; there’s no way to verify the authenticity of a post, there’s no public link for groups, or a reliable way to trace the origin of a fake message. Take for example when news came out recently that the Governor Bank of Uganda , Emmanuel Mutebile has passed on. The people who crafted the fake news knew that he was actually bed ridden in hospital but used that minor detail to pronounce his death. It took someone who was with him in the hospital (Dr Chris Kalangwa) to debunk these baseless rumors.
When you combine all of that and the fact that WhatsApp has a message forwarding feature that makes it easy to share fake news to dozens of groups at once, it’s easy to see why there’s so much misinformation on the platform.
WhatsApp’s message forwarding has turned out to be a useful conduit for those sharing fake news. For some context, I get over 30 WhatsApp forwards on any given day. Forwards tend to be everything from breaking news, memes, pithy quotes and so on, and a decent number of them also include links to phishing sites designed to steal login information for banking services or streaming sites.
With the coronavirus pandemic leading to a nation-wide lockdown for two weeks, WhatsApp forwards of late have focused on ways to fight COVID-19. But whereas the CDC promotes public distancing and masks, WhatsApp forwards tend to push unproven facts — claims that the virus doesn’t survive in high temperatures — and that eating garlic, ginger can rid someone of COVID-19.
WhatsApp forwards are particularly catastrophic as they actually mix factual information along with falsified details, and more often than not, it’s hard to tell the difference between what’s real and what’s not.
WhatsApp needs to take charge of fake news
Then there’s the privacy issue: not long after the lockdown started, I was forwarded an alleged picture of coronavirus patient zero in Uganda, as expected this was debunked and confirmed to be a picture that was taken in the USA. In fact NBS TV has a full daily news segment dedicated to curbing fake news.
At some point, WhatsApp needs to take charge and roll out meaningful tools to curb misinformation on its platform. Whether starting by disabling message forwarding altogether or any other way of limiting how easily fake news spreads on the platform –any action taken by WhatsApp to fight fake news would be highly welcome. By forcing everyone to manually copy and paste text into every group, WhatsApp will also be able to have a better idea of where a falsified message originated from.
We now live in unprecedented times, and the last thing we need is unnecessary panic brought on by fake news. WhatsApp says it is serious about tackling misinformation on its platform, and rolled out a way for users to search the web directly from the service. While that’s a step in the right direction, it needs to curtail the spread of misinformation in the first place. To do that, it has to remove message forwarding altogether.
Mini Poll
