Ahead of the midterm elections, many immigrant communities are facing a challenge: Their group chats are blowing up with political rumors and lies. The posts — often in Spanish, Mandarin or Hindi — come in droves on messaging apps such as WhatsApp and WeChat, reaching voters as they head to the polls.
Some falsely claim President Biden caused the baby formula shortage because he gave it all to undocumented immigrants. Others show doctored images of dogs urinating on Trump campaign posters or wrongly claim mail-in ballots have significant voter security issues.
Many immigrant communities trust the apps for information, which can allow lies to take hold and shape opinions among growing voting blocs in states such as Pennsylvania, Texas and Colorado, experts said.
The messaging apps are a key battleground. Meta-owned WhatsApp is popular among Spanish and South Asian language speakers in America. Tencent owned WeChat is popular with millions of Chinese Americans in the United States.
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But combating misinformation on these portals can be challenging. Social media giants have pledged to combat misinformation, labeling claims as false or taking posts down altogether. But studies show their technology does worse at moderating content in non-English languages.
Moreover, since WhatsApp is encrypted it limits the amount of data its owner can track, hindering efforts to label messages as misinformation. Political fact checking projects on WeChat can often disrupted,...
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