IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2022 - 59

the government's powers to criminalize the sharing
of such materials online. The law was struck
down in 2021 by the courts for infringing on free
expression [9].
Despite several states proposing or passing laws
to regulate disinformation, these have largely been
developed as a response to publicly accessible materials
on social media platforms, rather than aiming to
counter such materials on private messaging apps.
Private messaging apps, in particular, have been
described by journalists more recently as the next
refuge for politically maligned actors such as members
of the far-right and white nationalists, as social
media platforms face increased political pressure to
remove publicly available harmful content [10]. Yet,
private messaging services have fulfilled this function
for years, serving space to provide increased
anonymity or privacy to conduct nefarious activities,
including, for example, the use of Blackberry
phones by drug dealers [11], or in facilitating the
2011 London riots [12]. Nonetheless, the growth
of private messaging apps, coupled with recent
high-profile events that implicate private messaging
services, notably the coordination of the storming of
the U.S. Capitol building with the aim of preventing
the certification of the election of Joseph Biden as
U.S. President on 6 January, 2021, have contributed
to the increasing awareness of the phenomenon by
researchers and policymakers. There are challenges
in regulating online disinformation given the intrinsic
risk of limiting freedom of expression, which are
challenged even further in more private forums. To
this end, we hope that this study will act as a springboard,
offering a foundation for further and more
targeted academic and public policy research, by
providing demographic, penetration, and usage
self-report data gathered from a representative sample
of Canadians on their use of private messaging
apps and encounters with potential disinformation.
Background
Since Facebook acquired WhatsApp in 2014, it
has ballooned into the most popular messaging app
in the world with over 2 billion users in 180 countries
[13]. Several other messaging apps have also risen
in popularity, with many becoming a staple of modern
communications in different parts of the world,
including WeChat in China and Telegram in Russia
[14]. We use the terms " messaging applications "
or " messaging platforms " to mean internet-enabled
September 2022
media designed to offer two-way and multiway communication
between a finite number of users determined
by the sender [15]. Such apps are sometimes
referred to as " closed " messaging platforms or " direct
messaging " applications to distinguish from the
more publicly accessible format of sharing materials
on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube. To
further highlight the contrast between these services,
we have chosen to use the term " private " messaging
apps or platforms.
While private messaging apps have experienced
remarkable levels of growth worldwide, in tandem,
concerns over disinformation have been brought to
the forefront of academic and policy debates. This is
particularly true in the wake of 2016, a year marked
by political events in the West, especially the U.S.
presidential election and victory of Donald Trump
[16], as well as Brexit [1]. Since 2016, there has been
a steep increase in academic research on disinformation
and its potential negative impacts [17], [18].
Many have pointed to the technical design and governance
policies of the platforms as being embedded
with a wide range of public policy concerns,
from freedom of speech and censorship to intellectual
property rights and fair use, or tensions between
privacy and surveillance online [19], [20], [21].
Which of these concerns are prioritized, and by contrast,
which are deemphasized, are arguably shaped
by the corporate concerns of U.S. owners, given the
American dominance of platforms.
Nevertheless, online disinformation, as an area
of inquiry, is still very much in its infancy. More
recently, there has been a move by some to develop
more critical approaches to understand disinformation
in efforts to upend preexisting assumptions,
including that a healthy information ecosystem and
clear lines between " true " and " false " had existed
before the advent of social media and that " fake
news " on social platforms were responsible for farright
populism [22]. Indeed, central to these arguments
is the urgent need to further incorporate race
and inequality scholarship [22], [23].
Other research has pointed to the lack of conceptual
framing of disinformation and how this
impacts empirical studies. In turn, this raises concerns
about the potential to produce disproportionate
state legislative and regulatory responses that
may be restrictive of fundamental rights [1]. While
it is clear that there is tension between mitigating
online harms and competing democratic values,
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