Brazilian prosecutors on Friday called on messaging platform WhatsApp to delay the launch of its new feature Communities in Brazil until January to avoid the spread of fake news during and shortly after the country’s election in October.
Federal prosecutors said the expanded access to the new tool “comes at a time when fake news about the functioning of institutions and the integrity of Brazil’s voting system could threaten the country’s democratic stability.”
The MPF, as the Federal Prosecutor’s Office is known, said efficient steps taken by the community could undermine WhatsApp To prevent the spread of fake news in recent years.
WhatsApp is one of the messaging platforms used by supporters of right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro to communicate, hold rallies and express their views. Bolsonaro is seeking re-election, but is trailing left-wing former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil’s most polarized election in decades.
owned messaging service meta Agreed in April to postpone the launch of the new platform until after a second round of run-off votes expected in late October.
But the MPF said in a statement that this was not enough to mitigate the “serious risks that could generate an increase in misinformation … 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 will duly respond to the request of the authorities.
MPF said that 99 percent of smartphones in Brazil have WhatsApp installed.
The new feature will increase the number of users from 256 currently to 512, allowing messages to be sent to 2,560 people at a time. MPF said this will increase the ability of users to make the content viral.
Prosecutors noted that WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption prevents those responsible for the platform from monitoring and moderating the content of messages exchanged on it.
© Thomson Reuters 2022