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In Italy fake news about the corona virus are spreading like a bushfire on the platform, thanks to the broadcast features and the utter absence of any possible moderation on something Facebook turned into a proto-social network. That’s really why using whatsapp is dangerous.

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This is an interesting consideration - but it seems to be much more "why democracy won't work" than anything to do with specific communication platforms.

If everyone was on matrix, with solid end-to-end encryption, surely that problem would be equally bad?

Lack of trust, lack of authoritative sources that can be trusted; that's different to having secure mass communication means.

Why is this downvoted? The spread of fake news through Whatsapp is a real issue in many countries

I don’t know, I just stated a fact. Also, WhatsApp is worse than other messaging apps because of many social-style features Facebook introduced to prioritize interaction metrics, such as stories, on a platform born to br based on peer-to-peer and get-to-know trust.

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