It is interesting that WhatsApp is credited with so much of the fake news and disinformation in the recent Brazilian election as opposed to Twitter. Do you have an idea of why this is? I read this article [1] which mentions that while most Brazilians have mobile phones, their data plans only include free access to Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp and ordinary data is expensive (i.e. no net neutrality). That means that information is spread more often through these apps rather than by people reading news websites.

However, WhatsApp seems a very inefficient method to spread propaganda. You have to share each message either with an individual or a group and there is no "news feed" curated by some algorithm to target your interests specifically. Also, given that Twitter is also free for most Brazilians, I would expect that to be a more effective method to find and spread propaganda. One explanation given by the article is that "Since WhatsApp text messages are forwarded and reforwarded by friends and family, the information seems more credible." This makes sense but it doesn't explain why this phenomenon would happen more in Brazil than in the US.

[1] https://theconversation.com/whatsapp-skewed-brazilian-electi...