Images and misinformation in political groups: Evidence from WhatsApp in India

Kiran Garimella; Dean Eckles

doi:10.37016/mr-2020-030

Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review (Jul 2020)

Images and misinformation in political groups: Evidence from WhatsApp in India

Kiran Garimella,
Dean Eckles

Affiliations

Kiran Garimella: Institute for Data, Systems, and Society, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
Dean Eckles: Institute for Data, Systems, and Society, & Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37016/mr-2020-030
Journal volume & issue: Vol. 1, no. 3

Abstract

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WhatsApp is a key medium for the spread of news and rumors, often shared as images. We study a large collection of politically-oriented WhatsApp groups in India, focusing on the period leading up to the 2019 Indian national elections. By labeling samples of random and popular images, we find that around 10% of shared images are known misinformation and most fall into three types of images. Machine learning methods can be used to predict whether a viral image is misinformation, but are brittle to shifts in content over time.

Published in Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review

ISSN: 2766-1652 (Online)
Publisher: Harvard Kennedy School
Country of publisher: United States
LCC subjects: Technology: Technology (General): Industrial engineering. Management engineering: Information technology; Language and Literature: Philology. Linguistics: Communication. Mass media
Website: https://misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu

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