A First Look at COVID-19 Messages on WhatsApp in Pakistan
R. Tallal Javed, Mirza Elaaf Shuja, Muhammad Usama, Junaid Qadir,, Waleed Iqbal, Gareth Tyson, Ignacio Castro, and Kiran Garimella
TL;DR
This study analyzes COVID-19 discussions on Pakistani WhatsApp groups, revealing how misinformation spreads and how WhatsApp acts as a source for COVID-19 information on Twitter.
Contribution
First comprehensive analysis of COVID-19 messages on WhatsApp in Pakistan, including categorization and investigation of misinformation and cross-platform information flow.
Findings
Identified main categories of COVID-19 messages on WhatsApp.
Documented how misinformation propagates through user behavior.
Showed WhatsApp as a significant source of COVID-19 information on Twitter.
Abstract
The worldwide spread of COVID-19 has prompted extensive online discussions, creating an `infodemic' on social media platforms such as WhatsApp and Twitter. However, the information shared on these platforms is prone to be unreliable and/or misleading. In this paper, we present the first analysis of COVID-19 discourse on public WhatsApp groups from Pakistan. Building on a large scale annotation of thousands of messages containing text and images, we identify the main categories of discussion. We focus on COVID-19 messages and understand the different types of images/text messages being propagated. By exploring user behavior related to COVID messages, we inspect how misinformation is spread. Finally, by quantifying the flow of information across WhatsApp and Twitter, we show how information spreads across platforms and how WhatsApp acts as a source for much of the information shared on…
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