Characterizing the public perception of WhatsApp through the lens of media Josemar Alves Caetano1, Gabriel Magno1, Evandro Cunha1,2, Wagner Meira Jr.1, Humberto T. Marques-Neto3, Virgilio Almeida1,4 1 Dept. of Computer Science, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil 2 Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL), The Netherlands 3 Dept. of Computer Science, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais (PUC Minas), Brazil 4 Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University, USA {josemarcaetano,magno,evandrocunha,meira,virgilio}@dcc.ufmg.br,
[email protected] ABSTRACT Institute Digital News Report 2018 [26] shows a rise in the use of WhatsApp is, as of 2018, a significant component of the global messaging applications, including WhatsApp, as sources of news information and communication infrastructure, especially in devel- in several parts of the world. This report indicates that WhatsApp oping countries. However, probably due to its strong end-to-end use for news has almost tripled since 2014 and it has surpassed encryption, WhatsApp became an attractive place for the dissemi- Twitter as a communication system in many countries. One of the nation of misinformation, extremism and other forms of undesir- alleged reasons for this is that users are looking for more private able behavior. In this paper, we investigate the public perception of and secure spaces to communicate. In addition to this, WhatsApp WhatsApp through the lens of media. We analyze two large datasets turned out to be an important platform for political propaganda and of news and show the kind of content that is being associated with election campaigns, having held a central role in elections in Brazil, WhatsApp in different regions of the world and over time.