WhatsApp for People Power

As the most used app in the world, organizers are finding WhatsApp useful. But WhatsApp is being used to harvest data for Facebook's growing unaccountable digital empire. And it is not as safe from state surveillance as some might think, and state actors are pushing hard for greater access to monitor activism.

Learn how campaigners across Africa, Asia, the U.S. and Latin America are using WhatsApp as a powerful tool to build people-powered campaigns for change and what campaigns are doing to reduce risk, including alternate safer apps. Wondering if this course is right for you? Feel free to take the quiz at the bottom of this page

Using campaign examples, presenters share:

• What WhatsApp is best for
• Using broadcast lists versus groups
• Building and managing a team of WhatsApp group volunteers
• Managing multiple groups
• Designing content to drive sharing and action-taking
• WhatsApp for fundraising
• Missed call campaigns
• Calls to action that work
• When a WhatsApp chatbot might be useful, how they work and what they cost
• How to manage risk, especially under state-sponsored surveillance
• When to use Telegram or Signal instead

Instructors:

Ana Lozano

Astari Rosmalina

Christine Miranda

Hannah Roditi

Jonatan Rodriguez

Paul Aguilar

Paula Bonfatti

Soumya Bhat

Photo: Sudanese women protesting for equal rights. Photo: Muhammad Salah.

Comments from registrants:

"It gave me a better sense of the varied types of audiences and conversations that WhatsApp can be used for." - Alicia Johnson, National Organizer and Student Network Manager, Americans United for Separate Church and State