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WhatsApp is one of the most widely used messaging platforms globally, with billions of users sharing information in private groups. Yet, it offers little infrastructure to support moderation and group governance. In the absence of…
WhatsApp groups have become a hotbed for the propagation of harmful content including misinformation, hate speech, polarizing content, and rumors, especially in Global South countries. Given the platform's end-to-end encryption, moderation…
We present a thorough characterization of what we believe to be the first significant analysis of the behavior of groups in WhatsApp in the scientific literature. Our characterization of over 270,000 messages and about 7,000 users spanning…
WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app in the world. The closed nature of the app, in addition to the ease of transferring multimedia and sharing information to large-scale groups make WhatsApp unique among other platforms, where an…
This paper explores the nature and spread of viral WhatsApp content among everyday users in three diverse countries: India, Indonesia, and Colombia. By analyzing hundreds of viral messages collected with participants' consent from private…
WhatsApp emerged as a major communication platform in many countries in the recent years. Despite offering only one-to-one and small group conversations, WhatsApp has been shown to enable the formation of a rich underlying network, crossing…
WhatsApp, a platform with more than two billion global users, plays a crucial role in digital communication, but also serves as a vector for harmful content such as misinformation, hate speech, and political propaganda. This study examines…
WhatsApp Messenger is one of the most popular channels for spreading information with a current reach of more than 180 countries and 2 billion people. Its widespread usage has made it one of the most popular media for information…
Internet social networks have become a ubiquitous application allowing people to easily share text, pictures, and audio and video files. Popular networks include WhatsApp, Facebook, Reddit and LinkedIn. We present an extensive study of the…
An important political and social phenomena discussed in several countries, like India and Brazil, is the use of WhatsApp to spread false or misleading content. However, little is known about the information dissemination process in…
WhatsApp is, as of 2018, a significant component of the global information and communication infrastructure, especially in developing countries. However, probably due to its strong end-to-end encryption, WhatsApp became an attractive place…
This study examines social media users' preferences for the use of platform-wide moderation in comparison to user-controlled, personalized moderation tools to regulate three categories of norm-violating content - hate speech, sexually…
Social media platforms have been establishing content moderation guidelines and employing various moderation policies to counter hate speech and misinformation. The goal of this paper is to study these community guidelines and moderation…
Social media platforms moderate content for each user by incorporating the outputs of both platform-wide content moderation systems and, in some cases, user-configured personal moderation preferences. However, it is unclear (1) how end…
Encrypted messaging services like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Signal provide secure and deniable communication for billions across the world, but these exact properties prevent holding users accountable for sending messages that are…
WhatsApp is a key medium for the spread of news and rumors, often shared as images. We study a large collection of politically-oriented WhatsApp groups in India, focusing on the period leading up to the 2019 Indian national elections. By…
In recent years, reports and anecdotal evidence pointing at the role of WhatsApp in a variety of events, ranging from elections to collective violence, have emerged. While academic research should examine the validity of these claims,…
Moderating user-generated content on online platforms is crucial for balancing user safety and freedom of speech. Particularly in the United States, platforms are not subject to legal constraints prescribing permissible content. Each…
WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app in the world. Due to its popularity, WhatsApp has become a powerful and cheap tool for political campaigning being widely used during the 2019 Indian general election, where it was used to connect…
This study examines how WhatsApp has evolved from a personal communication tool to a professional platform, focusing on its use by small business owners in India. Initially embraced in smaller, rural communities for its ease of use and…