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South Africa's 'wild west' WhatsApp groups fuel racism, surveillance
But when Kisten, a Black South African adopted by white parents, arrived home puppy in tow, her mother showed her a message on the neighbourhood WhatsApp group that warned residents about a Black woman seen running after a dog.
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WhatsApp, founded in 2009, has come under pressure from some European governments in recent years because of its end-to-end encrypted messaging system and its plan to share more data with its parent, Facebook. (Reuters/Dado Ruvic)
W
hen South African content manager Happiness Kisten chased her family's escaped puppy up the road in the early hours of the morning in her Durban suburb, she did not realise she was being watched.
But when Kisten, a Black South African adopted by white parents, arrived home puppy in tow, her mother showed her a message on the neighbourhood WhatsApp group that warned residents about a Black woman seen running after a dog.
"At first I laughed, but afterwards I was like, that's very problematic. It left me with an ugly feeling in my gut," said Kisten, 29, who had previously left the group when she became uncomfortable with the racial prejudice she witnessed there.
South African crime rates are among the world's highest, and criminologists say growing disillusionment with the police has contributed to a rise in community WhatsApp groups where residents engage in amateur surveillance.
While such groups can forge stronger community ties, researchers say that without proper moderation by an internal mediator, they can become hotbeds for fear-mongering and racial profiling in a country still scarred by apartheid segregation.
Although exact numbers of community security WhatsApp groups are nearly impossible to track, South African security analyst Ziyanda Stuurman said the unregulated "wild west of social media" surveillance is becoming more common.
COVID-19 lockdowns heightened people's desire to connect through social media, but the trend also saw more disinformation circulating and fed long-standing paranoia about crime, said Stuurman.
