WhatsApp’s efforts to tackle misinformation in India and abroad include its newly rolled out features such as Channels and Meta AI, an AI virtual assistant integrated with the platform. “We actually think Channels can be really powerful for handling misinformation by helping make sure that there are authoritative sources of information in the app,” Alice Newton-Rex, head of product at WhatsApp, told indianexpress.com in a roundtable organised for mediapersons in Delhi on Friday, September 6. Some of the most popular Channels on WhatsApp are those belonging to news outlets and fact-checking organisations, she added. Newton-Rex, who said she is visiting the country to gather insights and feedback on how to improve the platform for Indian users, fielded various questions on AI, privacy, user safety, upcoming features, and more. She was accompanied by Nitin Gupta, the head of engineering at WhatsApp, and Carl Woog, the company’s global communications chief. Launched by WhatsApp nearly a year ago, Channels is a one-way public broadcasting tool for users to share textual or visual content with their followers. When asked if such features could be counter-intuitive to the company’s approach for handling fake news, Newton-Rex replied that inappropriate content on Channels can be reported and taken down as it is not an encrypted service like WhatsApp chats. “Similarly, Meta AI will be one of the ways people ask questions to find out whether they can believe something. I’ve already heard from lots of people that they might receive messages in their chat that they didn’t really understand, and they can ask Meta AI questions to find out more about it,” she said. Newton-Rex further noted that AI is going to be one of the next frontiers of the app, both for businesses and consumers. “It is quite remarkable that people who perhaps don’t even know what AI is, have discovered it within their WhatsApp. Whether it’s a mother helping her child with homework or someone practicing their English,” she said. The top executive, however, did not provide more information on what AI features can be expected on WhatsApp moving forward. Growth of WhatsApp Channels Discussing the potential of Channels, Alice Newton-Rex explained that the core idea behind the feature was to let users stay up to date with the topics and the organisations that they care about without cluttering their chat screens. “National and international top accounts are growing on Channels. We are working on recommendations to increase visibility to smaller creators as well. While both Facebook and Instagram have good recommendation systems, we’re just trying to see how we can adapt that technology to WhatsApp as well,” said Gupta. When asked about the plans to let users monetise their respective WhatsApp Channels, Newton-Rex said, “We do see an opportunity to allow Channel admins to build a business around that Channel. Maybe by having a Page Channel where users can choose to subscribe for a small fee or helping admins promote their Channel in the directory.” Learnings from India Based on her interactions with Indian users about the app, Newton-Rex said that privacy will be at the core of building WhatsApp as users want their conversations to be private. “We know that many households in India are sharing devices so being able to give them privacy features like Chat Lock, where you can choose to hide your most private conversations behind pins, is really important,” she said. While Newton-Rex acknowledged that Scheduled Messages was a widely requested feature by users in India and Brazil, she emphasised on maintaining a balance between adding new features and keeping the core WhatsApp user experience simple. “The risk of putting all these features is the platform becoming overwhelming for users,” she said.
