“It’s almost like going viral on Facebook,” Bantval said. Users regularly forward shocking and humorous messages, with the original sender’s name automatically stripped, making it hard to trace them. “And this year is different for everybody because we’re relying on virtual connections more than ever.”Įach day, users can receive hundreds of memes, videos, voicemails and texts spanning greetings, social invitations and political propaganda. “There’s just a lot of inaccurate information for an already confusing process,” said Chavi Khanna Koneru, executive director of nonpartisan group North Carolina Asian Americans Together. But South Asian Biden supporters and nonpartisan activists worry that misinformation on WhatsApp will affect turnout and support. 3 contest in swing states such as Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania where results will be close and predict the national outcome, researchers and nonpartisan voting advocacy groups say.Ībout 72% of Indian-American registered voters plan to back Biden, according to a September survey by Carnegie Endowment. South Asian voters, mostly Indian Americans, will be pivotal in the Nov. But apps for secret messaging such as WhatsApp have flown under the radar despite serving as a crucial political forum among middle-aged Indians, Latinx and other immigrant groups. His team and similar ones at nonpartisan groups are trying to fill WhatsApp’s moderation void by joining big WhatsApp groups and asking community leaders to report items.įighting fake news on social media such as Facebook and Twitter has become standard practice for campaigns.
#Reuters whatsapp news free#
Two billion users rely on WhatsApp’s free app to chat with individuals and groups of up to 256 people.īantval, 56, who chairs the Biden campaign’s five-member rapid response team focused on South Asian voters, has tracked dozens of concerning messages of unknown origin and crafted about 50 rebuttal graphics and texts over the last three months. Messages on WhatsApp, owned by Facebook Inc, are confidential and cannot be seen by moderators who police misleading memes, claims and other content on the social media giant’s flagship platform. presidential candidate Joe Biden’s top fake-news watchdog on messaging service WhatsApp about the Democrat and his Indian American running mate Kamala Harris. OAKLAND, Calif., Oct 27 (Reuters) - New Jersey tech entrepreneur Arun Bantval is U.S.
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