Misleading content on encrypted platforms in Chile: WhatsApp vs. Telegram during constitutional elections

Abstract

Misinformation via instant messaging apps in electoral times has grown to be a problem in Latin America lately. Doing a content analysis on most circulated messages on 300 WhatsApp and 42 Telegram chats two months before an electoral process in Chile, we explore an initial approach to a comparative study on the patterns of political information interchange with a particular focus on the magnitude, types and content of misinformation circulated on both platforms in Chile within politically oriented right-leaning groups on both platforms. Among the differences between platforms, we find that while WhatsApp is being used by the groups aligned with more extreme right-wing positions to coordinate campaigns, debate the contingency and spread both info and misinformation, Telegram is centred on deeper conspiratorial groups that merge national and international contingency, UN rejection and anti-vaccine, anticommunist discourse and radical calls for action such as the mobilization for a military coup.