Comment by seattle_spring

That was what I was getting at. I've read of a few (literal) witch hunting stories from India and Africa, and they all seem to start on WhatsApp groups. A similar phenomenon occurs in South America, as well, though in that case the killings tend to resemble lynch mobs hunting down suspected killers.

I've seen similar things happen in Western countries (e.g. when Reddit identified the wrong guy as the Boston Marathon bomber, local Facebook groups where seniors jump at their own shadow, etc), but I've only ever heard of it resulting in an actual death in non-western countries, and the common vector seems to be WhatsApp.

My working theory is that unmoderated peer-to-peer platforms like this are naturally conducive to witch-hunting (e.g. 4chan used to have a real problem with it), and that perhaps the groups being comparatively private might prevent law enforcement from becoming aware of the issue before it gets out of control.

But the other factor here is that these are all areas of the world where the rule of law is not particularly effective when compared to western countries, so WhatsApp might just be the means by which an old problem is manifesting, rather than being the cause of the problem itself.

forwards usually don't show the group the message originated from. it's like chain email, but worse