WhatsApp Increases the Spread of Fake News Among Older Nigerians
https://qz.com/africa/1688521/whatsapp-increases-the-spread-of-fake-news-among-older-nigerians/
The article above highlights a particular incident in which the spread of misinformation on WhatsApp had significant consequences. During the deadly 2014 Ebola outbreak in Nigeria, a particular WhatsApp broadcast claiming that bathing with hot water and salt and drinking as much salt water as possible can provide protection against the Ebola virus became widely popular, and it became so viral that the government had to officially announce the “prescription” as false information. However, the popularity of the WhatsApp broadcast had quite serious consequences, as 2 people died and over 20 people were hospitalized specifically due to high blood pressure from excessive salt intake.
It is believed that older Nigerians contributed the most to the broadcast becoming viral, as many people reported that they received the broadcast from their parents, grandparents, and other older relatives who out of fear of and lack of information about the virus were particularly quick to spread the news about a potential method of not contracting the Ebola virus. The article claims that this is in part due to how WhatsApp is structured, as unlike other social media platforms where it is necessary to create accounts, WhatsApp is closest to SNS in that one is able to avoid the hassle of creating and managing online profiles and still be able to share media and have conversations with others. Thus, it is more appealing to the older generation who may have trouble using various other social media platforms. WhatsApp has openly admitted that they have trouble managing the spread of misinformation resulting from the particular structure of the platform, and as it become more and more popular, its flaws lead to increasingly significant consequences. In fact, WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app among numerous countries in Africa, and Nigeria is one of them.
The article pointed to the concept of social trust as the main driving force behind the spread of misinformation on WhatsApp. Compared to the younger generation, who are more familiar with digital platforms and thus can have more critical thinking with sharing, the older generation tends to display a greater reliance on trusted social media networks, and are more willing to share misleading content.
This article was interesting because it exemplified how information cascades, a concept that we learned in class, can have rather serious and significant consequences. Information cascades spread when people make decisions by looking at the actions of others, and from these actions inferring something about what the other people know. This was in particular shown in this particular incident in Nigeria as many people lacked information about the virus itself and combined with the fear that it caused, led to many people in Nigeria, especially the older generation, to become dependent on the information that they assume others have.