WhatsApp continued to be a key communication tool in 2024, particularly for U.S.-based Latinos, who use the platform for connecting with family, sharing information, and even navigating disinformation. Meta reported that the app reached 3.2 billion monthly active users worldwide by late 2024, including 100 million in the United States.
Among U.S. Latinos, WhatsApp use remains particularly strong. Pew Research Center found that 54% of Latino adults used the app as of January 2024, up from 46% in 2021. Among Latino teens, 29% regularly used WhatsApp. Additionally, data from Equis Research showed that 12% of Latinos across 12 states relied on the app for news.
Researchers from the Digital Democracy Institute of the Americas (DDIA) and Brazilian tech group Palver tracked the use of WhatsApp in U.S.-based public groups throughout 2024, analyzing over 1,487 groups comprising nearly 800,000 users. These groups, which primarily communicate in Spanish or Portuguese, shared more than 1.6 million messages between January and October - Brazil accounted for 62.5% of all the messages analyzed. The content reached at least 796,000 and 799,000 people, respectively, across U.S. states.
A significant portion of these messages involved disinformation. Of the 3,200 false or misleading messages documented, election-related content was most prominent. This content circulated in over 1,400 public WhatsApp groups led by Latinos in the U.S., reaching more than 3.4 million Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking users.
Misleading claims about political figures like Joe Biden and Donald Trump or voting systems in countries such as Mexico and Brazil were shared widely. Emotional language, ad-hominem attacks, and cherry-picking information were common manipulation techniques.
Wars and violence also fueled misinformation on WhatsApp. Over 600 messages shared in Latino-led groups spread falsehoods about events like the war in Gaza, NATO's actions in Ukraine, and Ecuador's security crisis. Disturbing images and out-of-context videos were used to amplify sensational narratives.
WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption makes content monitoring challenging, so researchers rely on public groups to analyze trends. DDIA identified 3,000 "viral" messages, marked by Meta's double arrow icon for frequently forwarded content. These messages often blended politics with topics like religion and immigration, gaining significant traction across borders.
A closer analysis shows that disinformation blending politics, economics, gender, and religion significantly drove engagement. Anti-communism narratives, often linked to right-wing groups, frequently combined these themes and were closely tied to election-related discussions. Nearly 400,000 U.S.-based Latinos may have encountered some form of these misleading claims across 1,200 public WhatsApp groups.
A recent research from the University of California, San Diego and New York University reveals gaps in content moderation and fact-checking on Spanish-language media that leave these communities particularly vulnerable.
Latinos who rely on Spanish-language social media for news are significantly more likely to believe false political narratives compared to those using English-language platforms, according to the study, which surveyed over 1,100 U.S.-based Latinos.
Findings show that individuals using Spanish-language social media for news were 11 to 20 percentage points more likely to believe these narratives than their English-language counterparts. These narratives ranged from claims about U.S. immigration policies to misinformation surrounding COVID-19.
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