WhatsApp also has the ability to share REAL news. Which people can choose to ignore based on their own prejudices.
Example:
After the US election, I was tossed out of a WhatsApp group which I founded 4 years before because I told them about four instances of appalling behavior by pro-Trump Republicans "celebrating" his victory. They didn't want to hear the ugly tenor of the nation or that I was frightened. My transgender son had been accosted and almost beaten up in a restroom (saved by a security guard). That a close friend had witnessed an ugly racial incident in a local supermarket by a self-identified trump supporter. Or that I, myself had TWO run ins with Trump supporters in the local small town McDonalds.
My "friends" preferred to throw me out of the group rather than address the nutcase Right Winger in our group. They didn't like my *actual* real life experience. They preferred his version unreality where nothing was really wrong and I was "over-reacting." This was the same guy who wouldn't talk to a woman in a solo chat at all about any topic for any reason (you know, like Mike Pence?)
The moral of this story:
As Julius Caesar said over 2000 years ago, "Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt."
People (men) willingly believe what they wish.
Nothing has changed in 2000 years. Nothing is remotely *about* to change. You cannot teach people NOT to be prejudiced and stupid.
10
Yes. Let's shut down all communications we do not like. The market place of ideas - just a pipe dream of Oliver Wendell Holmes. Private censorship is just as vicious and undemocratic as government censorship. But then shouldn't we all just read the NY Times, that paragon of truthful reporting?
3
A simple text messaging app based on stolen IP could be worth $19 Billion and cause so much upheaval. Who knew! An injunction in the IP infringement lawsuits could shut it down.
Have you ever played The Telephone Game? WhatsApp is no different.
Perhaps all children should be made to play this game at school periodically in every grade to understand consequences of distorting information and perhaps practicing on keeping the accuracy.
Blockchanning technology can be used to ensure original information is not altered as it passes from person to person.
3
WhatsApp is just old school note-passing in children's classrooms, but with literally greater reach.
What makes it dangerous is that the transmission of messaging is instant and far-reaching, and uncaught by the teacher's eye (or in grown-up speak, Big Brother).
All sorts of chaos could happen (or not) with the worst of human nature. Criminal mob plans, double-agent espionage, planning acts of terrorism, ... or more commonly these days, fast-thinking loose-lips conspiracy theories that reinforces themselves.
If humanity could only become mature adults and talk with forethought and deliberation, rather than the Tower of Babbling Kids.
1
I need the news to be peer reviewed with page long bibliographies
4
I think it's really up to us all. I follow a few simple rules; treat any forwarded sensational news or message with scepticism; check the authenticity of the message before forwarding it to others; and never shy away from telling someone that their message is a hoax/false.
3
Before throwing in the towel and opting for “Que sera, sera” maybe some further detail upon how groups are infiltrated by exploitive agencies is in order. Groups whose members actually know each other and have complete contact information can resist extraneous “calls to action” alien to them. Perhaps the formation of a group can be subjected to certain rules that insure outsiders will be flagged and removed? Perhaps groups can be educated to filter suspect foreign objects out, as are phishing emails, and report them to a warning and extermination procedure? As always, the overhead expense of clean-up will be resisted by the profit-first-last-and-always corporate curse.
4
"For better or worse, we are going to have to learn to live with it." This is just self-fulfilling fatalism. Actually, we don't have to live with it, if we choose not to. It really is a choice. We don't have to let technology platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook exploit the negative aspects of human nature resulting in widespread killing and discrimination. We don't have to ban it either. We could regulate it "down to a size where we can drown it in the bathtub" as Grover Norquist might put it.
1
So, you are proposing censuring private conversations?
4
There's nothing wrong with WhatsApp. It's the people using it. That doesn't mean that the app creators shouldn't try to eliminate the abuse that flows through it. But to say it's the app's fault is like blaming language. The ability to communicate enables bad people as well as the good. We've been trying to identify bad people and curtail their activities since humanity evolved. Need to raise better people. It's just really difficult.
18
When an organization, such as a political party, posts malicious messages through their trolls on an unsuspecting audience, the consequences are disastrous.
Such organizations are tech savvy and have deep pockets, and an ordinary human cannot imagine the leverage this provides. It is not individuals that are responsible for spreading rumours, though this is possible, it is the coordinated attack by unsavory groups assisted by technology that needs to be controlled.
7
As long as there are humans there will be rumors, fake news, hate mongering etc. Technology has just accelerated the speed with which it is spread.
I distinctly remember in elementry school (back in the 70’s) being taught critical reading and viewing. We had to read some newspapers and watch a movie and explain why we thought it was true or fiction.
We have become gullible consumers and tend to trust and believe anything written and anything visual.
The NYT has done a great job in moderating all creaders comments whereas just about all other news organizations’ comment sections are worse than anything you’ll find on Facebook.
Be critical of all you read and educate the young ones.
11
Only a control freak or a greedy capitalist would like to know every word passing through internet. What about the conversation in work place between workers? or in a party among friends?
Is that a good thing?
4
There is an easy solution. Start charging for the bytes sent after a free minimum. That will cut down forwarding and, in general, spreading rumors!
4
Slightly off topic here (misinformation) but still WhatsApp related . . . recently people using WhatsApp to phone people in other countries are increasingly finding that the app is breaking down and dropping the call while itl is in progress--with no indication to the caller--and the phone call gets routed to the callers phone provider.
A friend uses WhatsApp to speak to his family in Brazil and was recently told by TMobile that he had racked up over $300 in international call charges on his TMobile account because WhatsApp had stopped working while he was innocently talking to his mother. He was told this was happening to a lot of TMobile customers. She suggested he demand that WhatsApp reimburse him for the charges. He is not holding his breath.
1
@NYCLugg This has not been my experience. WhatsApp does NOT route to your mobile carrier. The app alerts the user that it is disconnected and will attempt to reconnect, and if it can't the call will terminate. Perhaps your friend cannot tell the difference between the distinct WhatsApp dialer and the distinct mobile carrier dialer.
I've racked up hundreds of hours using WhatsApp without ever incurring any charges.
2
@NYCLugg
Whatsapp has an option to turn off using mobile data and states that if you leave the option to use mobile data on, you may incur charges from your carrier. This seems to be what happened to your friend. The app should be used only with WIFI if you don't want to have mobile carrier data charges.
5
This would be a terrific time to make sure every grade of every school in the country includes constant, incremental education on critical thinking, and on the importance of being able to verify things presented to them as fact.
It might hurt the wealth-generation for "entertainers" like Rush and that infowars pill-pusher, but oh, well.
4
There is nothing to fix. Whatsapp is basically a 1 to 1 conversation tool. If you choose to be part of a group, then that is your decision and you have to live with what comes your way. If you do not like it, leave the group.
Users have to learn to be responsable for themslves, and it doesn't help cuddling or "taking care" of them. They are not in a Kindergarden anymore...
16
As someone from India, who is part of about 10 Whatsapp groups, I have a balanced view: Whatsapp facilitates interactions between family and friends who might be spread throughout the world. I have followed in real time, both festive and sad occasions as they happen - birthdays, weddings, festivals, illnesses and deaths are all happening and participated in. In general, Whatsapp has brought the world closer and helped sustain a support system and lifeline for billions of people.
Unfortunately, these interactions also reflect the worst side of humans and human groups: rumor mongering, backbiting and general pettiness, boasting and posturing are common. These groups are also deliberately used to serve various political and religious agendas using disinformation and propaganda techniques. For example, almost every major political party in India, operates war-rooms with thousands of people paid to spread these messages via Whatsapp, especially ahead of elections. They provide a direct line to prospective voters and bypass the checks and balances in traditional media. But people get smarter and start ignoring propaganda, which means an arms race to sustain attention.
13
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our apps, but in ourselves. We are still creatures closely ringing the campfire frightened by noises in the night.
25
What do you find more frightening: Individuals talking to each other, relaying false information? Or some monolithic entity like FaceBook or a government deciding what individuals can say to each other?
The post office made spreading rumors easier. The telephone made it easier still. So did chat. And next comes WhatsApp.
Lives were lost in India due to false rumors. How many lives are saved by advice from a friend? From news in a natural disaster? Made easier by technology.
Trying to "solve" the problem of people talking to each other getting it wrong? The real danger is the attempt.
36
I trust that WhatsApp messages are truly encrypted, so in once sense it provides safe messaging for people in countries who can't trust their governments. On the other hand, you have to give Facebook your phone number to use it. Many people have only their phones as their Facebook and online devices. So - for "civil" security it's fine, but what about "commercial" security?
How much data is Facebook collecting from the rest of our phone usage to sell? Right now it's probably a good bargain for people who have bigger worries about their national governments than about what kinds of ads they're getting: they may be under-the-radar economically at this point while Big Data refines its algorithms and finds new markets for the details of our more lucrative online lives as Free, Rich People. But in five or ten years the rest of the world will also be under the thumb of the Algorithms of Capitalist Surveillance.
4
WhatsApp happens to be the free messaging service available to people with older phones or limited, slower data plans. And adopted by their friends and family around the world no matter what phone they can afford.
The same rumor mongering, mis-information spreading and other nefarious uses of text messages is going on in iMessage on Apple phones or Facebook messaging or Slack. Given it's upscale price and image, I suspect more white collar crime, insider stock trading, arms or drug deals, or sexual harassment payoffs are through Apple's iMessage than WhatsApp.
3
In the 1970s I attended a meeting at which Herman Kahn, the thinker of the unthinkable, spoke. I've forgotten what he said except for one side remark, in which he told the audience, as individuals, that we were a very rare breed: we believed things that we, or our close set of family and friends, had not personally witnessed. His point was that most human beings did not, but we, presumably educated and trained to rely on the work of others, were an emerging minority, and thus knowledge could spread.
Apparently Kahn was unaware of the Bible, religion, etc. Floods and Arks, walking on water, parting the Red Sea, eternal life after death... The gullibility of our species is awesome. Apparently our curiosity, and our desire for explanations of what we observe, have facilitated a readiness to believe the most fantastic things imaginable.
"Fixing" WhatsApp is hardly likely to change that very much...
20
WhatsApp is the equivalent of group texting, iMessage or email, right?
Not sure how the content of private communications like that is going to be regulated.
I'm more worried about polarization caused by partisan bias in the mass media which pushes readers to seek their own echo chambers rather than finding a common dialogue.
12
One factual question in the article, the time to update an app is stated as weeks, this was the problem limiting a change to the number of forwards a user could exercise. App updates, once available, take seconds, not weeks to update at the user level. If the week reference for an update meant to reflect the development cycle they should have stated it as such. In any event, this change should be very easy to provide, it's a question of will, not complexity.
it is not the time to update the servers that matters. it is the time for a significant majority of ,users. to download the update to their phones.
3
When Facebook bought Whatsapp, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg referred to the new acquisition as a "gateway drug."
Just say no to drugs that enrich greedy billionaires, rot minds, poison society, and help Russian agents influence US elections.
Use email instead.
1
Anything free, comes with a catch. WhatsApp is mainly used in developing nations like India, Brazil, African continent, even East Europe.
In India, many public services have a WhatsApp number rather than a dedicated, paid, 1800 number.
Also, WhatsApp has the ability to create groups, share videos, all of which is fertile propaganda platform for radical groups, that are in plenty, in the territory they serve.
The real culprit here is FB, who owns this, they have been slack and complicit in both the on-line and mobile platform, and have completely ignored the harm these messages can cause to society.
1
Wishful thinking answered by illusion; the basis of religious deliverance. Why shouldn't WhatsApp be as successful?
6
These kinds of problems are not specific to WhatsApp, but to communication in general. This column makes points valid for FaceBook, Twitter, or any kind of communication platform.
What's going on is that by making communication easy and, in economic terms, frictionless and low cost, we make it easy to spread all kinds of information. And since people seem to like bad information it spreads faster than positive information. (Evolutionarily we are attuned more to avoid potential bad outcomes.)
The hard problems are social ones, not technical ones. Teaching people and helping people to realize what bad information is will be the key. I.e. it's not the app, but the app can provide guidelines.
5
Something doesn't add up here: the article says that Whatsapp is an encrypted service, one that allows dissidents to communicate out of the reaches of their government. How then was the researcher (Dr. Simon) at the end of the article able to get information about the spread of the rumors about the missing Israeli teenagers? If Whatsapp messages are truly private and encrypted, how is someone able to get this data?
Is Facebook, which acquired Whatsapp, claiming their tool is private and then making it available to third parties again? Sounds like their MO.
@"Archie" Wankere
One possibility would be simply finding someone who heard the rumor on WhatsApp, asking them who they heard it from, and going to that person and repeating the process. WhatsApp automatically encrypts messages; the people using it aren’t necessarily trying to keep their conversations secret.
1
one person declined to say how they shared. sounds like they asked people.
1
If human nature is the source of problems on WhatsApp, why aren’t the same kinds of problems seen on other enctypted, widely used messaging apps like Apple’s iMessage?
Or, is this just a case of the old game of telephone, where a story starts one way and changes as one person passes it along to the next (but at light speed)?
4
@MSJ
Not everyone has an iPhone. Human nature is the source. WhatsApp doesn't promote negativity- people do.
3