Chicago.- In recent election cycles, the messaging app WhatsApp has been a major source of news and contact — and misinformation — for U.S. Latinos, a forum for exchanging memes, jokes and emojis with one another across the country and Latin America.
Now Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, are joining that platform.
The Harris-Walz campaign announced Monday that it has opened a channel on the messaging app to reach Latino voters, a crucial part of the American electorate that Democrats have struggled to gain and whose decisions at the polls could be decisive in November.
Campaign officials said the channel would be the first of its kind in a presidential election.
It has been revealed that a bilingual video will be shown featuring Harris’ campaign manager, Julie Chávez Rodríguez.
The channel will offer viewers a behind-the-scenes look at the campaign and the latest news about Harris’ platform.
It will be run by members of the Latino campaign staff and will have daily voice messages, videos and notes featuring volunteers and supporters.
It will also serve as a tool to combat misinformation, officials said.
The move is the latest in a campaign to reach out to new, younger audiences online as coconut emojis and summer memes — often in the color chartreuse — have proliferated.
More than half of the U.S. Hispanic population is estimated to regularly use WhatsApp, which allows users to send text messages and make phone calls for free over the Internet, and the app has long surpassed other social networks, including Instagram and Facebook, in popularity in Latin America.
For Latino immigrants in particular, it has become a hub of connectivity. But the app has also been a major source of misinformation.
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