I am terrified

I'm terrified. A fascist who threatened to kill 30,000 'leftists' is now Brazil's president. He won as rich companies illegally spent millions to flood Facebook's Whatsapp with fake news and hate speech -- until the country trusted a racist homophobe more than anyone else. Facebook CEO Zuckerberg could have stopped it and informed users. He didn't. We can't allow this to happen anywhere else -- sign now and we'll plaster our call outside Facebook's HQ: I'm terrified. A fascist who threatened to kill 30,000 'leftists' is now Brazil's president. He won as rich companies illegally spent millions to flood Facebook's Whatsapp with fake news and hate speech -- until the country trusted a racist homophobe more than anyone else. Facebook CEO Zuckerberg could have stopped it and informed users. He didn't. We can't allow this to happen anywhere else -- sign now and we'll plaster our call outside Facebook's HQ: Sign now Dear friends, I am terrified. A fascist has just been elected President of Brazil. Jair Bolsonaro said he'd prefer a dead son to a gay son and threatened to kill 30,000 leftists and bulldoze the Amazon. And weeks ago, almost nobody wanted to vote for him. How could this happen?! Facebook's WhatsApp. CEO Zuckerberg watched silently as rich companies illegally spent millions to flood the messaging platform with fake news and hate speech -- until the country trusted a racist homophobe more than anyone else. Zuckerberg could have stopped it and informed users. He didn't. If we don't act now, this could be replicated everywhere. It's on us to use this moment to shame Facebook into taking responsibility for fake news and hate speech spreading on its platforms -- sign now and Avaaz will put our call on huge billboards outside Facebook's headquarters! Click here to sign Whatsapp is a fake news paradise: it's fully encrypted and nobody knows what's going on. In Brazil, it was only after millions of pieces of fake news content had been spread that journalists started to notice! But there is a way out: convince WhatsApp to introduce fake-news filters that can be activated by users, alerting them to potential disinformation. For this to work the platform will need to allow users to make encryption optional, a solution that experts say would work both to protect democracy and our privacy. The amount of fake news currently spreading on all our social networks is creating a global crisis that impacts us all. On Facebook, tens of millions of fake accounts are created every day. When it comes to Youtube, a top-level engineer decided to quit after finding out its algorithms are pushing people to watch extremist, racist, and conspiracy content. That's why we need to become the movement that fights back -- urging social media platforms, starting with Whatsapp, to stand up for citizens, democracies, and real information. Click to sign below -- before more fascists use social media to turn us all against each other. Click here to sign Avaaz is fighting fake news and disinformation across the world. In Brazil, our "Elves" group exposed one of the largest disinformation networks in the country and got it taken down. But it was too little, too late. Social media algorithms have vast power over our societies, and they're force-feeding us poison right now. For the sake of everything we love, let's clean them up, before it's too late. With hope, Christoph, Fadi, Emma, Alice, Rosa, Ricken, and the rest of the Avaaz team MORE INFORMATION: The three types of WhatsApp users getting Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro elected (The Guardian) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/25/brazil-president-jair-bolsonaro-whatsapp-fake-news WhatsApp has a fake news problem—that can be fixed without breaking encryption (Columbia Journalism Review) https://www.cjr.org/tow_center/whatsapp-doesnt-have-to-break-encryption-to-beat-fake-news.php India WhatsApp 'child kidnap' rumours claim two more victims (The BBC) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-44435127

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