A WhatsApp group can exist without anyone outside the group knowing of its existence, who its members are or what is being shared, while end-to-end encryption makes it immune to surveillance. Media commentators who defended Corbyn were often accused of belonging to a WhatsApp group of “outriders”, co-ordinated by Corbyn’s office, which supposedly told them what line to take. Meanwhile, the Conservative party’s pro-Brexit European Research Group was said to be chiefly sustained in the form of a WhatsApp group, whose membership was never public. WhatsApp groups can not only breed suspicion among the public, but also manufacture a mood of suspicion among their own participants. Invisible WhatsApp groups now offer a modern update to the type of “explanation” that once revolved around Masonic lodges or the Rothschilds.

Source: The Guardian July 02, 2020 05:03 UTC