WhatsApp, the messaging application business owned by Facebook, said on Friday it is "taking immediate legal action" against companies responsible for a flood of political spam ahead of Brazil's presidential elections.
Campaign propaganda has flooded social media in Brazil ahead of an Oct. 28 run-off vote in the presidential election.
Brazil's Folha (in Portuguese) is the best primary news source on this story.
WhatsApp's legal action today immediately follows a Folha report a couple of days ago that various companies (funding sources) linked to the extreme-right-wing frontrunner Jair Bolsonaro paid social media firms to send hundreds of millions of messages to Brazilian voters' phones that attacked Bolsonaro's rival, former São Paulo mayor Fernando Haddad.
Here's a machine translation of Folha's late-Friday update:
One day after Folha published a report showing that companies are funding political message campaign as mass-messages (Spam) on WhatsApp, the company sent out legal notices to Quickmobile, Yacows, Croc services and SMS Market agencies to stop their activities.
And in related reporting at Quartz by Luiz Romero, a bombshell report in Brazil linked fake political disinfo on WhatsApp to Brazil's presidential frontrunner. In other words, just like Trump in the USA in 2016.
Read the restAn exposé by Brazil's largest newspaper could dramatically change the South American country's already volatile presidential election.
Folha reported that firms linked to far-right frontrunner Jair Bolsonaro have hired social media companies to send hundreds of millions of messages to voters attacking Bolsonaro's rival, former São Paulo mayor Fernando Haddad, and his Workers' Party.
