The vast majority of false information shared on WhatsApp in Brazil during the presidential election favoured the far-right winner, Jair Bolsonaro, a Guardian analysis of data suggests.
The analysis sheds light on the spread of misinformation on the Facebook-owned app, with fears it could be poisoning political debate in one of the largest democracies in the world.
In a sample of 11,957 viral messages shared across 296 group chats on the instant-messaging platform in the campaign period, approximately 42% of rightwing items contained information found to be false by factcheckers. Less than 3% of the leftwing messages analysed in the study contained externally verified falsehoods.
The figures suggest the spread of fake news was highly asymmetrical, accounting for much of the content being spread by and to Bolsonaro supporters on WhatsApp.
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Source: WhatsApp fake news during Brazil election ‘favoured Bolsonaro’ | World news | The Guardian