ABSTRACT
As the use of smartphones in Brazil has advanced in recent years, instant messaging platforms such as WhatsApp and Telegram became part of Brazilians' lives and communication. However, the use of these platforms is not limited to exchanging messages between two users but also serves as a platform for group discussions and content dissemination. This study focuses on YouTube videos shared by politically oriented public groups on WhatsApp and Telegram during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil. Specifically, we analyze the information disseminated by political groups about the pandemic and the main events that took place during the same period, highlighting the main differences between the platforms. Our investigation shows a relevant political bias in the content shared in public groups in Brazil, with predominantly right-oriented content in messaging apps. A significant overlap of popular videos between these platforms was also found. On YouTube, we found the main categories of videos and examined the narrative that these videos give us from the perspective of WhatsApp and Telegram users. © 2022 ACM.
ABSTRACT
In this work we present a comparative analysis of influencer marketing evolution on Facebook and Instagram, spanning the pre and post Covid-19 pandemic onset periods. We collected and characterized a large-scale cross-platform dataset, comprised of 9.5 million sponsored posts. We analyzed the relative growth rates of the number of ads and of user engagement within different topics of interest, such as sports, retail, travel, and politics. We discuss which topics have been most impacted by the onset of the pandemic, both in terms of sponsored content supply and demand. With this work we hope to expand the understanding of influence dynamics on social networks and provide support for the development of more contextualized and effective branding strategies. © 2022 ACM.
ABSTRACT
Instant messaging platforms such as Telegram and WhatsApp became one of the main means of communication used by people all over the world. In most of these services, communities are created around the so called groups and channels, allowing easy, encrypted and instantaneous information exchange. With the political debate gaining a widespread attention from the public and permeated with intense discussion and polarization, specially in a context in which far right communities are being banned from maistream social networks like Twitter, Youtube, and Facebook, alternative platforms, like Telegram become very popular as they start to be seeked as a "free space to discussion"and abused for dissemination of misinformation and hate speech. This work consists in a data analysis for Brazilian public groups and channels for political discussion on Telegram, observing the network created in the platform as well as a closer look in the dynamics of messages and members in this platform. Our findings show that political mobilization increased substantially on Telegram in recent years, suggesting a mass migration from other mainstream platforms. We find the large groups structure of Telegram are effective in spreading the messages through the network, with the content being viewed by numerous users and forwarded multiple times. Looking at the messages, we find an expressive interplay between Telegram and external web pages, notably for Youtube and other social networks. Furthermore, we observed a relevant amount of messages attacking political personalities and spreading unchecked content about COVID-19 pandemic. Taken all together, we perform an extense study in how political discussion advanced on Telegram in Brazil and how they operate in this alternative messaging application. © 2021 ACM.
ABSTRACT
In view of the emergence of mobility restrictions and social isolation imposed by the coronavirus or COVID-19 pandemic, digital media, especially social networks, become a breeding ground for fake news, political attacks and large-scale misinformation. The impacts of this 'infodemic' can take even greater proportions when using sponsored content on social networks, such as Facebook ads. Using the Facebook ad library we collected more than 391K facebook ads from 90 different countries. Choosing ads from Brazil as the focus of research, we found ads with political attacks, requests for donations, doctors prescribing vitamin D as a weapon to fight coronavirus, among other contents with evidence of misinformation. © 2021 ACM.
ABSTRACT
Whatsapp is the most popular messaging app in the world. It is not only used as a one-to-one messaging app but also as a platform for group discussion. Recently, Whatsapp has gained the spotlight for its role in disseminating (often low-quality) information. Our study focuses on YouTube videos shared by political-oriented public groups on Whatsapp for a month during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through a careful analysis of the topical distribution and the lexicon present in the videos shared, we shed light on the COVID-19 debate happening in these groups. Moreover, we compare COVID-19 related videos with other political videos being shared in the groups. We observe that videos that discuss political themes have more emotional attributes as well as topics related to typical right-wing concerns such as family, work, and religion than videos discussing both pandemic and politics. © 2020 ACM.
ABSTRACT
In view of the emergence of mobility restrictions and social isolation imposed by the coronavirus or COVID-19 pandemic, digital media, especially social networks, become a breeding ground for fake news, political attacks and large-scale misinformation. The impacts of this 'infodemic' can take even greater proportions when using sponsored content on social networks, such as Facebook ads. Using the Facebook ad library we collected more than 236k facebook ads from 75 different countries. Choosing ads from Brazil as the focus of research, we found ads with political attacks, requests for donations, doctors prescribing vitamin D as a weapon to fight coronavirus, among other contents with evidence of misinformation. © 2020 ACM.