[gooddelta]

I know this is going to be an inconvenient reminder for many folks, but: if you play any part in bringing software (or technology in general) into the world, you have an obligation to consider the moral, ethical, and political ramifications of what you are building at every single step of the way.

What happened in that village wasn't an accident – it was the result of careful "growth-hacking", design, product work, and engineering. It just didn't work as intended.

There is no such thing as a neutral line of code, feature, notification, design, business, or product. Full stop.

[kinkrtyavimoodh]

What exactly is "growth hacking" in a chat app? There were no ads here, no algorithmic timeline, no perverse incentives, nothing that you could potentially consider as malicious.

What should WhatsApp have done?

Every single post about WhatsApp here has people pontificating about this and that but no one offers any suggestion of what should be done.

[gaius]

What exactly is "growth hacking" in a chat app?

WhatsApp is a fairly direct clone of BBM and BBM’s growth hack for want of a better term was to make its users feel like part of an exclusive in-group.

[kinkrtyavimoodh]

Yes, to the extent that every chat app is a clone of every other chat app, WhatApp is a clone of BBM. Other than that, what exactly are the similarities?

The whole point of WhatsApp is having a primary key that is your phone number. And they launched on literally all kinds of OSes that developing countries were using, including Symbian as late as 2012. So please tell me, how exactly is a service where you can message each other by their phone numbers and that was probably supported on the most number of platforms for its time "exclusive" and "in-group".

Sorry but you don't seem to have any idea what you are talking about.

[dang]

> Sorry but you don't seem to have any idea what you are talking about.

Personal swipes like that will get you banned here, so please don't post those. Your comment would be fine without that bit.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[gaius]

Sorry but you don't seem to have any idea what you are talking about.

Perhaps you are unaware that BBM and hence WhatsApp are really about their group chat features?

[gooddelta]

Yeah, definitely no advertising, particularly overseas, that could have contributed to WhatsApp's growth. No features added like large groups that could be used to spread disinformation. WhatsApp chats are used to influence advertising, so that goes out the window. This happened because WhatsApp provided the means for it to happen – and you can speculate all day long about whether some other app would have made it possible, and whether it would have happened, but what you're saying is speculation, and what I'm citing are facts.

None of it was intentionally malicious – but not considering the moral, ethical, political ramifications of how your product will be used is negligent. This is negligence, not malice.

Platforms aren't neutral.

[stickfigure]

The logical conclusion of this perspective is that human beings should not be allowed to freely communicate in groups. I'd rather not live in your world.

Technology can't fix broken human beings. There is a moral failure here, but it isn't Facebook's. Blaming WhatsApp at best makes the real problem harder to fix, and at worst makes excuses for the actors in this horrorshow.

[gooddelta]

Speed and reach, my friend. Lynchings happened in the US a while ago, but they weren't a universal phenomenon. A platform with the speed and reach of WhatsApp makes disinformation more potent.

Nowhere in my post did I suggest human beings shouldn't be allowed to freely communicate – what I'm suggesting is that maybe we haven't built the right tools to enable that safely, and instead, we're exacerbating the "broken human beings" side of this issue.

[lxrbst]

> we're exacerbating the "broken human beings" side of this issue.

There is no other side of this issue. This could and probably have happened with sms. This is 100% the mob's fault.

[user111233]

SMS costs a lot in 3rd world countries. We are probably seeing these issues now because this is the first time these people have had access to cheap and easy communication. The rest of the world was eased in to it with email and the web but these countries are being dropped in to the deep end.

[solveit]

By that logic we should ban megaphones as well.

You know what? Just ban shouting until people build the right tools to enable that safely.

[mijamo]

Well if you start using a megaphone to encourage killing people you will have troubles in a few minutes. With whatsapp... Not that much. Whatsapp is probably the first medium of communication that is harf to monitor in many places. It is much safer to encourage hatred and violence there because you don't need physical interaction, it scales a lot and authorities cannot intercept it.

[nradov]

What are the right tools?

[lxrbst]

It's a chat application. How people can be so ignorant to abuse such a simple thing is beyond me. As much as I hate Facebook, I don't get how you can put this on WhatsApp.

From the looks of it, you could've achieved the same thing with someone printing and spreading around fliers. Doesn't mean a printing company selling printers should consider the "moral, ethical, political ramifications".

[gooddelta]

Printing creates a barrier to entry. You have to have enough conviction in your idea, and the determination to actually write the statement, lay it out, and print and distribute it. You don't just type "oh shit lxrbst should be hanged lmao," hit send, and reach 100 people.

You're basically describing why journalism is important, and still has an important place in our society.

[sooheon]

Journalism is important, but not to the exclusion of other forms of communication. If your thrust is that barriers to entry for communication is good because it puts mass comm. powers in the hands of the few(er), I cannot agree.

[mijamo]

Ironic to post such a comment in a platform that puts a high barrier for communication through moderation and guidelines.

[cwyers]

Okay, but what about WhatsApp made this possible that wouldn't have been possible with plain old SMS/MMS? (Or even just the telephone? I guess no video over the telephone, but rumors and lies can certainly spread that way.) It's not like Facebook, where there's some kind of algorithmic curation. This is entirely peer-to-peer content distribution.

[Tempest1981]

Sounds like the videos were very shocking and quickly forwarded - instigating a mob mentality:

“each said they’d done so after watching shocking videos on WhatsApp warning of outsiders abducting children.”

[robjan]

How are WhatsApp chats used to influence advertising? They are end to end encrypted.

[gooddelta]

That's partially true – but end-to-end encryption is different than zero-knowledge. I design the latter.

Although LifeHacker isn't a great source, they do a good job of pulling more credible sources together into this article: https://lifehacker.com/stop-using-whatsapp-if-you-care-about...

[nradov]

A chat app is about as neutral as platforms get. What specifically should they have done differently?

[user111233]

I haven't used whatsapp but from what I understand it's just an IM app. I'm not sure how an IM app can be responsible for this behavior. It simply lets users send messages to each other. There are no algorithms sorting what you see or promoting certain kinds of interactions. It seems that maybe some societies are far too trusting of baseless rumors and can't handle the fact that they are now able to share rumors incredibly fast.

[sterlind]

Indeed, rural villages with low literacy rates aren't able to handle sharing rumors at the speed of light. This is precisely the discussion we're having!

Suddenly, high-speed internet is affordable even in places without reliable power. They can't spot fake news. They're unprepared for WhatsApp - do you blame them?

[projektir]

I'm not buying it, these people lynched somebody, this isn't about a lack of literacy. It's about being used to using violence as a way to solve problems.

[sterlind]

The article mentioned that lynchings were unheard of in Rainpada prior to the introduction of WhatsApp and the spread of misinformation. Please cite your source for them "being used to using violence."

[mwfunk]

I blame them for murdering strangers, yes. Of course. It makes no difference how they were tricked into doing so, that’s practically irrelevant.

[sooheon]

A: open communication and information never reaches them, we segregate them according to some prime directive, and they go on lynching each other and being backwards for all eternity until they arrive at internet #2 through convergent evolution.

B: open communication and information reach them, some use it for productive ends and some use it to mobilize lynchings, after 1~2 generations of adjustment, education, adaptation they largely outgrow and outeducate the worst of it.

C: How do you propose to regulate communication to find the best path that is neither fully A nor B?

[Tempest1981]

The article mentions how:

“The next day, WhatsApp replied to the ministry, saying that it was “horrified by these terrible acts of violence,” but arguing that an effective solution to misinformation would require help from the government. WhatsApp pushed a few changes to the app, adding “forwarded” labels to re-sent messages, and limiting the number of people or groups a user could forward messages to in India to five.”

[sterlind]

Simple: legally, treat WhatsApp groups as public message boards, and allow the local authorities to administer local WhatsApp groups the way you'd allow police to tear down signs put up on a cork-board in a public square.

It's not rocket science.

[sooheon]

I agree it's not rocket science, it might be harder because we're dealing with human behavior.

The Salem witch hunts happened with full support of the "local authorities" to run investigations, interrogations, trials, and hangings. It was not for a lack of administration.

Next month when there's an article about a corrupt official extorting farmers, are we to say "at least farmers can't communicate or organize without authority oversight?"

[Thiez]

Are you implying that whenever more than two people have a conversation on any chat application, the government should have the right to read along, for our own protection?

[sterlind]

Do you live in India?

WhatsApp is produced by Facebook, an American company. It has to obey the US government. If WhatsApp wishes to operate in India, it should provide a mechanism for the Indian government to administer it.

If it doesn't, India is well within their rights to sanction them. There's no shortage of skilled tech workers in India; Facebook needs India more than India needs Facebook.

[sooheon]

Nothing about a communication app inherently incites violence. It's the ass-backwardsness of the community that is the cause of this behavior. The answer is better education, not misplaced blame on technology. Would you have banned gossip and verbal and written testimonies in the Salem witch hunts?

[nradov]

I've done a lot of code reviews in my time and I've seen many, many neutral lines of code. So cut the hyperbole.