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Political activists in Brazil have used software that retrieves citizens' phone numbers on Facebook, then automatically sends them WhatsApp messages and adds them to WhatsApp groups.
Nearly three weeks ago, 147 million voters in the country went to the polls for the parliamentary elections and the first round of the presidential election.
This Sunday, they will decide between the far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro and the leftist candidate of the Workers Party, Fernando Haddad, in the second round of the presidential election.
A BBC investigation found that efforts to support various parties and candidates – covering state, federal, and Senate votes – have used the technique of the mass message.
Why is WhatsApp targeted?
WhatsApp is not just used as a private messaging application in Brazil. Many mobile phone networks offer subscribers unlimited WhatsApp access, so even people who can not afford an Internet package can use it.
As a result, the platform has assumed some of the roles filled by social networks in other countries. Many people join WhatsApp groups based on their interests to talk about politics and hobbies with people they have not met.
WhatsApp claims that 120 million Brazilians currently use its service. It is commonly used to share news – and misinformation.
How is WhatsApp misused?
Some of the devices involved in data recovery can send up to 300,000 messages at a time. They are sold via the Internet and some sellers claim that their use is difficult to trace.
The method is not limited to politics. Marketers have also used it to promote cosmetics and foods, among other products, among Brazilians.
BBC News Brasil interviewed people linked to different campaigns under cover of anonymity. Among them, activists and marketers explained how they used the scraping and bulk messaging tools.
In addition, the team has maintained with companies selling the software as well as with people recently added to WhatsApp groups with political links without their consent.
The system violates the Facebook rules of the owner of WhatsApp. In the opinion of some experts, this could also be an electoral crime.
For its part, Facebook claims to have banned hundreds of thousands of suspicious WhatsApp accounts and closed several Facebook pages as well as accounts linked to a marketing group supposed to support Bolsonaro.
1000 numbers in 10 minutes
Scratching software allows customers to choose a target audience by searching for keywords, pages, or public groups on Facebook.
In less than 10 minutes and 10 clicks, it is possible to collect nearly 1,000 phone numbers. Data can be grouped by city, gender and interests.
Contacts can also be brought together by:
- using details provided voluntarily by the supporters of a candidate
- purchase of databases sold legally in Brazil
- use information stolen or illegally purchased from telephone service providers
A woman from Sao Paulo's Grajau neighborhood recalls having discovered that she had been added to four WhatsApp groups.
"I do not know where they found my phone number," said the BBC woman who asked to remain anonymous.
"The administrators and some people had foreign numbers, I was scared, I left all groups and reported them all to WhatsApp."
She added that after a day or two, she had been added to eight other groups.
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She stated that she had not reported her number to any political campaign, but that she had made it public on Facebook.
A 23-year-old university student in Campinas said he was added to three groups, in which four people dominated the conversation.
"They sent dozens of memes and videos against PT (the Workers Party) every day," said the young man who also asked not to be named.
"Other people were also sending a lot of content, and that was crazy."
Bulk WchapeauxApp messaging
Luiz Rodrigues Junior, of Agency Genius Publicidade, is a marketing specialist who acknowledged having tested the addition of people to WhatsApp groups in order to spread political messages en masse.
But he said that he only used legally compiled databases and that he chose not to pursue this strategy because it was not effective.
He refused to reveal the candidates for whom he had acted.
"I can not create a group that [explicitly] support my candidate as this could expose him, people could attack him in the group and I will have no control over him, "he explained.
"So we set up electoral groups with names like" Ending Corruption in Elections ", invited many people via the software and integrated them into the group.
"Half of those added have gone and half have stayed.
"Within this group, we have placed two or three of our own professionals, who have started to publish content in support of our cause and have started debates.
"Then we would replicate that in many other groups, maybe 50 or 100."
In some cases, the groups could be limited to residents of a neighborhood facing a specific problem for which their candidate was proposing a solution, he said.
But he explained that for the strategy to work, it would have required an army of employees to keep the discussions on track.
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How to do bulk messaging do the programs work?
Bulk delivery of WhatsApp messages usually involves the use of "click farms".
But some services no longer require special equipment, just enter the details of the Sim card into a computer running the corresponding software.
Several strategies are used to avoid detection.
One trick is to list the phone numbers used in ads posted on classified sites. When members of the public try to contact them, they "legitimize" the numbers and deceive the WhatsApp robot detectors.
As the market is relatively new, the price, structure and complexity of the tools vary considerably.
In the interior of the state of Sao Paulo, for example, it is possible to find services that sell a package of one million WhatsApp messages for the equivalent of £ 6,200.
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WhatsApp limitations
In WhatsApp, each user can be a member of as many groups as he / she wishes, but there are certain limits.
The first is that each member can only create 9,999 groups.
Another is the number of messages transmitted simultaneously to different conversations. This was reduced from 256 to 20 in August as part of efforts to combat false information.
Some researchers now claim a further reduction in the number. They point to India, where the limit has been reduced to five.
But WhatsApp said that there would not be enough time to make the change before the weekend vote.
"We have an advanced spam detection technology that identifies accounts with abnormal behavior so that they can not be used to spread spam or misinformation," said a statement from WhatsApp.
"We are also taking immediate legal steps to prevent companies from sending bulk messages via WhatsApp and have already banned accounts associated with these companies."
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The Brazilian Electoral Tribunal said that "there is no specific election legislation for WhatsApp" or similar applications, but added that the law covered election advertising via the Internet.
However, part of the problem with applying this principle to WhatsApp is its use of end-to-end encryption, said an expert from the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ).
"The content is not found on the platform's servers, but on users' devices," said Professor Carlos Affonso Souza.
And since WhatsApp can not decrypt encrypted messages to read, it can not control the content in the same way as other social media platforms, he added.
"I'm afraid this debate is forcing us to go back to discussions about blocking the application or forcing it to abandon its cryptography."
