What's app has a pretty massive spam and fake news problem. It's an unfortunate side effect of WhatsApp's ability to forward message to your contacts. Users will forward fake news to their contacts, those contacts will then forward to their contacts and so on. It's essentially a modern reincarnation of chain emails of the 90s and early 2000s.
I've had discussions with my friends and family on WhatsApp about them forwarding fake news, but they either don't understand (a lot aren't particularly computer literate) or refuse to listen. WhatsApp has tried to fix the problem by restricting the ability to forward messages, but this behaviour is so ingrained in the "culture" of the WhatsApp user base that software fixes are unlikely to resolve the problem. Anecdotally, I know a lot of WhatsApp's younger users refuse to engage with users on the app because of this behaviour. I've personally disabled WhatsApp notifications to control the amount of fake news spam I receive.'
Edit: This behaviour is highly regionalized, so I wouldn't necessarily expect all WhatsApp users to have experienced it
Has nothing to do with the software. I use Whatsapp as my main IM and never had this issue. Pretty sure the same would happen on iMessage too if it targetted the same demographic.
So your parent comment wasn't really a fair comparison because you left out the biggest IM service which does actually compete really well with iMessage without the vendor lock-in.
In my experience, it has. I use both iMessages and Whatsapp in India. I have never dealt with fake news and all the low signal forwarded memes and garbage on iMessages.
Whatsapp, on the other hand, is filled with it. The only solace in whatsapp is that I can disable auto media downloading to escape it to some extent.
This has more to do with people who use whatsapp vs people who use iMessage. If all the people who use whastapp migrated to iMessage, the same problem will happen there.
It might, but part of why it happens is that the app makes it easy for that to happen and users are trained.
Think how "redditors" talk vs how we do here in HN. We have clear rules about what this forum is about. Commenting "lol" -> "loll" -> "lolll" is not accepted. You'll be warned, marked "dead", or outright banned.
Moderation in a messaging app only happens at scale via UX.
One long press on WhatsApp to forward (on the same menu as copy, reply, and delete) as compared to a long pressed followed by “more...” to find forward on iPhone (and it was only “recently” added).
The propaganda spread on Whatsapp is happening because of external issues. There are groups of people paid or motivated to spread it on that platform. Such a minor thing wouldn't make any difference in reduction of propaganda spread to people dedicated enough to spread it.
> Such a minor thing wouldn't make any difference in reduction of propaganda spread to people dedicated enough to spread it.
You may have missed the part where I said it wasn’t even available at all until a recent-ish update.
Don’t forget that propaganda is created by dedicated people but it’s viral spread is via innocent, gullible victims. That’s where the inertia in forwarding comes in to play.
