Elections for about half the world’s population take place in 2024. But the integrity of these elections is under threat, because WhatsApp isn’t doing enough to detect and stop networked disinformation and hate speech on its platform – which can quickly turn into political violence.
The Mozilla Foundation is urging WhatsApp to implement urgent reforms to curb election disinformation. They recommend adding a step to forwarding messages, applying warning labels to potentially misleading content, and limiting the platform’s broadcast capabilities during election periods. This is in response to the misuse of the app for spreading false information and affecting election integrity in various countries. Mozilla highlights past instances where WhatsApp was used to manipulate elections through mass messaging and misinformation.
For more details, you can read the full blog post on the Mozilla Foundation’s website here.
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