WhatsApp Bans More Than 100,000 Accounts in Brazil Election
- Brazil court to probe claims of campaign against candidate
- Problems with misinformation come ahead of Oct. 28 runoff
An employee works inside the "war room" ahead of Brazil's runoff election at Facebook Inc. headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on Oct. 17.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/BloombergWhatsApp banned hundreds of thousands of accounts in Brazil as the Facebook Inc. messaging service struggles to contain spam, misinformation and political shenanigans ahead of a runoff election in Latin America’s largest country.
Facebook set up a "war room" to stem the tide of hate speech, false information and other damaging content during Brazil’s election this month, marking a test for the social network ahead of the November midterm elections in the U.S. While the company said it was able to thwart false information on its main social network, it’s had more trouble controlling misbehavior on WhatsApp, which is encrypted and virtually impossible to monitor.