Hoaxes Whatsapp

 How to be a more cautious media consumer

• ·         Presume that information published online by a stranger is more false than it is true.
• ·         Prefer information shared by well-known media and identified journalists. It is better to wait for several media to share the same fact before considering it reliable.
• ·         A photo is never evidence by and in itself
• ·         A basic principle is to compare information in several media.

a)      Why is so hard to avoid misinformation on Whatsapp?

Hoaxes are spreading like wildfire in private groups on the platform. That poses a big problem for both fact-checkers and WhatsApp itself. With WhatsApp, you have no idea how many people are reading what you’re putting in there. Groups are limited to 256 people, making it hard for fact-checkers to see when and where fake news goes viral, and all messages are automatically encrypted.

b)      How some fact-checking organizations try to combat this misinformation?

Several have created institutional WhatsApp accounts to receive and respond to messages about fake news, photos and memes, which users send if they see something suspicious on the platform. In turn, fact-checkers ask readers to share the fact check in the same group as the hoax so as to stem the spread of misinformation.

c)       Write an example of fate news.

 Last month’s election in Germany, this week’s Catalan independence vote, rumors about storms in sub-Saharan Africa and fake kidnapping schemes in Brazil.