> This is terrible but blaming WhatsApp is misplaced. If it wasn't WhatsApp, it would have been another service. I feel this is a worthwhile piece. It spends c

> This is terrible but blaming WhatsApp is misplaced. If it wasn't WhatsApp, it would have been another service. I feel this is a worthwhile piece. It spends considerable time exploring the issues of end-to-end encryption and enhanced privacy and their relationship to the problem of lynchings. It details how whatsapp became more than a mere P2P messaging service in this community. It was the primary source of news, like Facebook but completely private and impervious to intervention. Thus all the negative stuff we've heard about how FB affected our elections, which everybody is ok with "blaming FB" for.. imagine that 10X and actually facilitating lynchings. Often we've heard that "terrorists will just use another service" but lynch mobs are a different case much more closely tied to the popularity of a social network. WhatsApp has become that and it has also led the charge to make everything super private and impervious to law enforcement. To be clear, I completely see the positive aspects of E2E encrypted systems and welcome them in my life. But I think it we should support journalistic explorations of the consequences of these systems, especially as they grow beyond simple P2P communication and become the primary source of news in a community, which is the case here.