Tiplines to Combat Misinformation on Encrypted Platforms: A Case Study of the 2019 Indian Election on WhatsApp

Understand

There is currently no easy way to fact-check content on WhatsApp and other end-to-end encrypted platforms at scale.

• In this paper, we analyze the usefulness of a crowd-sourced "tipline" through which users can submit content ("tips") that they want fact-checked.
• We compare the tips sent to a WhatsApp tipline run during the 2019 Indian national elections with the messages circulating in large, public groups on WhatsApp and other social media platforms during the same period.
• We find that tiplines are a very useful lens into WhatsApp conversations: a significant fraction of messages and images sent to the tipline match with the content being shared on public WhatsApp groups and other social media.