Brazilian prosecutors on Friday called on messaging platform WhatsApp to delay the launch in Brazil of its new feature called Communities until January to avoid the spread of fake news during and immediately after the country's election in October.
The federal prosecutors said the expanded reach of the new
tool comes "at a time when fake news about the functioning of institutions
and the integrity of the Brazilian voting system could jeopardize the
democratic stability of the country."
The MPF, as the federal prosecutors office is known, said
Communities could undermine the efficient steps taken by WhatsApp in recent
years to contain the spread of fake news.
WhatsApp is one of the messaging platforms that supporters
of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro most use to communicate, organize
rallies, and divulge their views. Bolsonaro is seeking re-election but is
trailing leftist former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Brazil's most
polarized election in decades.
The messaging service owned by Meta agreed in April to
postpone the launch of the new platform until after an expected second-round
run-off vote at the end of October.
But the MPF said in a statement this was not enough to
mitigate the "serious risks that an increase in disinformation can
generate ... in the last two months of the year."
A WhatsApp spokesperson said the company will continue to
carefully evaluate the best time to launch the new platform and would duly
reply to the authorities' request.
The MPF said WhatsApp is installed on 99 percent of the
smartphones in Brazil.
The new feature would expand the number of users from 256 at
present to 512, allowing messages to be sent to 2,560 people at once. This
would increase users' ability to viralize content, the MPF said.
The prosecutors noted WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption
prevents those responsible for the platform from monitoring and moderating the
content of the messages exchanged on it. © Reuters
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