A First Look at COVID-19 Messages on WhatsApp in Pakistan

Oct 28, 2020·
Rana Tallal Javed
,
Elaaf Shuja
,
Muhammad Usama
,
Junaid Qadir
Dr. Waleed Iqbal
Dr. Waleed Iqbal
,
Ignacio Castro
,
Gareth Tyson
,
Kiran Garimella
· 0 min read
Abstract
The worldwide spread of COVID-19 prompted extensive online discussions, creating an infodemic on social media platforms such as WhatsApp and Twitter. We present the first analysis of COVID-19 discourse on public WhatsApp groups from Pakistan. Building on a large-scale annotation of thousands of messages containing text and images, we identify the main categories of discussion, focus on COVID-19 messages and inspect the different types of images/text being propagated, examine user behaviour to understand how misinformation spreads, and quantify the flow of information across WhatsApp and Twitter — showing how WhatsApp acts as a source for much of the information shared on Twitter.
Type
Publication
IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining (ASONAM)
publications
WhatsApp COVID-19 Misinformation
Dr. Waleed Iqbal
Authors
Dr. Waleed Iqbal

I am Waleed Iqbal, an Assistant Professor in Data Science at Northeastern University, based at their London Campus.

I also hold positions of Teaching Fellow in Computer Science at the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London and Associate Lecturer at Arden University London.

I received my PhD in Computer Science under the supervision of Dr. Ignacio Castro and Prof. Gareth Tyson in the Social Data Science (SDS) Lab, Networks Research Group at Queen Mary University of London.

My research interests are broadly in manifestation of socio-economic inequality in online user activity.

Previously, I worked at IHSAN Lab in Information Technology University Lahore, Pakistan, supervised by Prof. Dr. Junaid Qadir as a postgraduate thesis student, affiliated researcher, and teaching assistant.

Since September 2023, I am endorsed and recognised as UK Global Talent (Exceptional Promise) in the Research and Academic Category by the Royal Academy of Engineering UK and granted Global Talent Visa by the Government of the United Kingdom.