Jamillah Knowles & Reset.Tech Australia / https://betterimagesofai.org / https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

As digital communication increasingly transposes from public to private channels to private, encrypted messaging platforms, the conditions under which information is shared, trusted and transformed are fundamentally changing. Our report, thus, examines how information integrity is moulded within private messaging ecosystems where relational trust, platform affordances, and limited visibility alter how information is interpreted and circulated. Investigating how information migrates across platforms and transforms in the process, our report seeks to understand user behaviour, patterns of verification and social trust networks. Employing information integrity as its central node of analysis, the study explores how accuracy, context, sourcing and credibility are preserved or compromised as content travels across different platforms.

If you go through the report, you will find:

• A conceptual framework for information integrity, grounded in both technical and social understandings of the dimensions of digital trust
• An empirical analysis based on survey responses and in-depth interviews with users of private messaging platforms
• A detailed delineation of user journeys, mapping how average individuals receive, assess, modify, verify and share information within closed networks.

Key findings from the report indicate that,

• Trust in private messaging ecosystems is primarily relational, often overturning and overriding content-based verification.
• Information is frequently stripped of context and nuance as it circulates through private networks, even when emanating from credible or official sources.
• Verification practices are highly irregular and situational, with private messages garnering less scrutiny than public content.

Based on these insights, this report posits recommendations that would aid in the reinforcement of information integrity in private messaging ecosystems.

• For users, it emphasises slowing down information flows through conscious verification and responsible sharing.
• For platforms, it calls for interventions in design that maintain source context, enable transparent attribution, and support verification without endangering privacy.

To find out more about our work in more detail, please read our paper!

In case of any questions: contact Sreya Nair, Email id: [email protected].