06-17-2018, 05:27 PM
Now getting to WhatsApp..
Quote:Abijeet Nath and Nilotpal Das were driving back from a visit to a waterfall in the Indian province of Assam earlier this month when they stopped in a village to ask for directions. The two men were pulled out of their car and beaten to death by a mob who accused them of stealing children. “The villagers got suspicious of the strangers as for the last three or four days messages were going around on WhatsApp, as well as through word of mouth, about child lifters roaming the area,” Mukesh Agrawal, a local police officer said. Indian police have linked dozens of murders and serious assaults to rumours spread on the messaging service in recent months.Fears mount over WhatsApp's role in spreading fake news | Technology | The Guardian
In Brazil, WhatsApp has been blamed for a yellow fever outbreak after being used to spread anti-vaccine videos and audio messages. In Kenya, WhatsApp group admins have been described as a major source of politically motivated fake news during recent elections. And there are signs that the messaging service is being used as a conduit for misinformation in the UK. New analysis by the University of Oxford’s Reuters Institute found that consumers around the world are reading less news on Facebook and are increasingly turning to WhatsApp – which has 1.5 billion active users worldwide – to share and discuss news stories..