Members of Congress are calling on Meta to implement clear and strict rules against election misinformation on its newly created WhatsApp Channels.
Launched eight months ago, WhatsApp Channels is a spinoff of the private messaging app WhatsApp, but with this new rendition, it now serves as a broadcast platform where users can follow posts from public accounts. However, unlike traditional social media, users can’t like or comment on posts, nor can they see which accounts other users are following.
The app is already used by half a billion users.
However, unlike Meta’s other social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or Threads; WhatsApp Channels lacks any clear guardrails against voter interference, threats of violence and election misinformation.
These explicit guardrails set in place against the spread of election misinformation on Facebook and Instagram were greatly influenced by congressional intervention. Since the 2016 presidential election, Facebook has been in the spotlight for its role in allowing the spread of misinformation.
During congressional hearings in April 2018, Mark Zuckerberg apologized for the company’s missteps in handling the spread of fake news, hate speech and foreign interference in the 2018 election on Facebook. A few months later, Facebook announced that it had beefed up its security systems and hired more moderators in order to prevent meddling foreign influence ahead of the 2018 midterms.
However, Meta continues to fall under scrutiny over its handling of disinformation on Facebook and Instagram. The European Union is leading an investigation into the company’s failure to stop Russian-backed lies.
“Meta’s continued failure to implement explicit election misinformation policies on its public WhatsApp Channels threatens the integrity of democratic processes in the United States and across the globe,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Ca), the former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said this week. “It is absolutely imperative that Meta extends the same policies from its other platforms to WhatsApp Channels to prevent the spread of election-related falsehoods.”
A spokesperson for WhatsApp Channels said that the platform’s community guidelines prohibiting illegal, violent, fraud, or deceitful content would include posts on voter suppression.
Tim Harper, an elections analyst at the Center for Democracy and Technology and a former Meta employee focused on election and political ad policies, told Politico that Meta’s failure to have explicit guidelines on election protections on WhatsApp Channels just creates a “loophole that bad actors can and likely will exploit.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“It is one of the largest online platforms in its own right,” Harper said “Its policies should mirror Meta’s broader community standards, which have explicit policies to prevent election interference.”
While researchers from Mozilla and University College London said they hadn’t found election misinformation on political candidates’ Channels since it’s been launched, instances of election misinformation were reported on WhatsApp messaging before Zimbabwe’s 2023 elections and also ahead of the 2020 U.S. elections spread in Spanish.