Page 71 - The Economist Asia January 2018

Business 55
The Economist January 27th 2018
Social media salt shortages. Regulators in Kenya, Malay-
Onwards and appwards sia and South Africa have mooted the idea
Mark Zuckerberg’s India, WhatsApp monthly active users, m of holding moderators of group chats lia-
ble for false information in their groups.
other headache 200 WhatsApp is working on changing the ap-
pearance of forwarded messages in the
150 hope that visual cues will help users tell
the difference between messages from
WhatsApp shows thatFacebook’s friends and those of unknown prove-
efforts to fightfake news mayfail 100
nance. But ultimately it will be down to us-
HERE’S too much sensationalism, 50 ers to be more responsible and not blindly
“Tmisinformation and polarisation in forward messages they receive.
the world today,” lamented Mark Zucker- It is as yet unclear whether fake news
berg, the boss of Facebook, recently. To im- 2013 14 15 16 17 0 on Facebookwill be less ofa problem after
prove things, the world’s largest social net- Source: Statista itchangesitsalgorithms. The experience of
workwill cut the amount ofnews in users’ WhatsApp suggests, however, thatthe con-
feeds by a fifth and attempt to make the re- cerns will persist. “Even with all these
mainder more reliable by prioritising in- culated on WhatsApp warning of kidnap- countermeasures, the battle will never
formation from sources which users think pers in the area. In a gruesome coda to the end,” Samidh Chakrabarti, a Facebook ex-
are trustworthy. incident, pictures and videos from the ecutive admitted on January 22nd. “Misin-
Many publishers are complaining: they lynchingalso went viral. formation campaigns are not amateur op-
worry that their content will show up less It is unclear how exactly such misinfor- erations. They are professionalised and
in users’ newsfeeds, reducing clicks and mation spreads, not least because traffic is constantly try to game the system.” 7
advertising revenues. But the bigger pro- encrypted. “It’s not that we have chosen
blem with Facebook’slatestmovesmaybe not to look at it. It is impossible,” says Fi-
that they are unlikely to achieve much—at lippo Menczer of Indiana University’s Ob- Luxury goods
least if the flourishing of fake news on servatory on Social Media, which tracks
WhatsApp, the messagingapp which Face- the spread offake newson Twitterand oth- Online, upmarket
bookboughtin 2014 for$19bn, isanyguide. er online services. Misinformation on
In more ways than one, WhatsApp is WhatsApp is identified only when it
the opposite of Facebook. Whereas posts jumpsonto anothersocial-media platform
on Facebook can be seen by all of a user’s or, asin India, leadsto tragicconsequences.
friends, WhatsApp’s messages are en- Some patternsare becomingclear, how- MILAN
Richemont, the world’s second-biggest
crypted. Whereas Facebook’s newsfeeds ever. Misinformation often spreads via luxuryfirm, places a beton digital
are curated by algorithms that try to maxi- group chats, which people join voluntarily
mise the time users spend on the service, and whose members—family, colleagues, YOUTUBE video featuring a woman
WhatsApp’s stream of messages is solely friends, neighbours—they trust. That Asporting a gold watch and driving a
generated by users. And whereas Face- makesrumoursmore believable. Misinfor- convertible, which has been viewed on-
book requires a fast connection, Whats- mation does not always come in the form line nearly 5m times. A social-media “in-
App is not very data-hungry. of links, but often as forwarded texts and fluencer” with more than 11m followers on
Asa result, WhatsApp hasbecome a so- videos, which look the same as personal Instagram posting photos of herself wear-
cial network to rival Facebook in many messages, lending them a further veneer ingthe same timepiece. Alimited flash sale
places, particularly in poorer countries. Of oflegitimacy. And since usersoften receive ofthe watch on Net-a-Porter, a website.
the service’s more than 1.3bn monthly us- the same message in multiple groups, con- Purveyors of pricey jewellery and
ers, 120m live in Brazil and 200m in India stant repetition makes them more believ- watches have been slow to embrace things
(see chart). With the exceptions of Ameri- able yet. digital. But last year’s social-media cam-
ca, China, Japan and South Korea, Whats- Predictably, propagandists have em- paign to relaunch Panthère, a watch made
App is among the top three most-used so- ployed WhatsApp as a potent tool. In by Cartier, a French jeweller, is evidence
cial apps in all bigcountries. “Dreamers”, a book about young Indians, thattheyare wakingup to the powerof the 1
Most of the 55bn messages sent every Snigdha Poonam, a journalist, describes
day are harmless, but WhatsApp’s scale at- visiting a political party’s “social media
tractsall sortsofmischief-makers. In South war room” in 2014. Workers spent their
Africa the service is often used to spread days “packaging as many insults as possi-
false allegations of civic corruption and ble into one WhatsApp message”, which
hoax warnings of storms, fires and other would then be sent out to party members
natural disasters. In Brazil rumours about to be propagated within their own net-
people travel quickly: a mob recently set works. Similar tactics are increasingly visi-
upon a couple they suspected of being ble elsewhere. Last month’s conference in
child traffickers based on chatter on South Africa of the African National Con-
WhatsApp (the couple escaped). gress, at which delegates elected a new
But it is in India where WhatsApp has party leader, saw a flood of messages
had the mostprofound effect. Itisnow part claiming victory for and conspiracy by
of the country’s culture: many older peo- both factions. With elections due in Brazil
ple use it and drive younger ones crazy by and Mexico this year, and in India next
forwarding messages indiscriminately— year, expect more such shenanigans.
sometimes with tragic results. Last year, Governments and WhatsApp itself are
seven men in the eastern state of Jhar- keenly aware of the problem. In India au-
khand were murdered by angry villagers thoritiesnowregularlyblockWhatsApp to
in two separate incidentsafterrumours cir- stop the spread of rumours, for instance of Clickbait for plutocrats