Community WhatsApp groups, originally intended to improve neighbourhood safety, are increasingly becoming platforms for misinformation, fear-mongering and social tension, particularly when poorly managed, security company Community Monitoring Services (CMS) has warned.
The company cites research showing that informal community crime groups often blur the line between verified threats and assumptions, creating environments where suspicion is treated as evidence and rumours spread faster than facts.
WhatsApp groups were never designed to serve as crime intelligence platforms, yet were often used as such without the checks and balances needed to do so responsibly, noted Alicia Olivier, a social media specialist at CMS.
“Community WhatsApp groups are powerful communication tools but power without structure quickly becomes risk,” she said. “When people start posting assumptions instead of verified information, the group stops improving safety and starts amplifying fear.”
Olivier manages CMS’s own WhatsApp channels, where only fact-based, incident- or event-related information is shared.
One of the most common problems is the rapid escalation of ordinary, non-criminal behaviour into crime alerts.
“Individuals walking, waiting or simply being unfamiliar are often labelled as suspicious, with no evidence of wrongdoing,” she said.
“A moment of discomfort can be broadcast as a threat. Once that message is reinforced by others, it gains authority it does not deserve. Ordinary behaviour becomes criminalised by the mobile ‘kangaroo court’, and that is dangerous.”
WhatsApp’s design — enabling rapid sharing while limiting verification and context — amplified the dynamics. False or exaggerated crime claims could trigger panic, misdirect security responses and place unnecessary strain on law enforcement.
“Panic is not prevention,” Olivier noted. “When communities react emotionally instead of using verified information, attention is pulled away from genuine crime patterns and effective prevention strategies.”
Some groups unintentionally reinforce bias through vague descriptors or coded language.
“This encourages prejudice,” she said. “When identity replaces behaviour as the basis for suspicion, you are no longer talking about crime prevention, you are talking about social division. In some cases, this can even pave the way for vigilantism.”
A lack of moderation and clear posting rules was another recurring problem. Many groups operated without administrators to verify information or intervene when posts became speculative or inflammatory.
“Without rules, WhatsApp groups drift away from their original intent,” Olivier said. “They become noisy, emotional and unreliable. Important safety information gets lost, while gossip and fear dominate.”
Reliance on community chats could also create a false sense of security and being informed was not the same as being safe. “WhatsApp groups should support safety, not replace proper reporting channels or structured initiatives.”
Ultimately, Olivier said, the effectiveness of the groups depended on how they were used. “The purpose of a community group should be clarity, not commentary. If a message does not help someone make a safer decision or take responsible action, it probably does not belong in a crime-focused group.”
Technology could support safety but could not replace judgment, accountability or trust. “When those elements are missing, the group itself can become part of the problem it was meant to solve.”
Lizette Lancaster, the head of the justice and violence prevention programme at the Institute for Security Studies, said there was no evidence to suggest that community WhatsApp groups either prevented crime or exacerbated insecurity in communities “because it hasn’t really been fully researched”.
She pointed out that authorities, including the South African Police Service, had repeatedly warned against circulating unverified information on social media.
“Examples include media statements on child kidnappings, where old or fake cases are circulated in WhatsApp groups … It amplifies problems — panic and hysteria, as CMS has pointed out.”
The groups could sometimes put people on their guard, which could be both positive and negative.
“If the groups were used to provide general safety tips, like locking doors, being alert during the holiday season or sharing fact-based information about crime hotspots, that is good.”
She said the groups could be helpful in specific, well-managed situations. “They can spread factual information so that communities can help safeguard people, for example alerting drivers to children walking along a dangerous road. In those cases, it creates a sense of community and a sense of control.”
With trust in the police low — the Human Sciences Research Council’s latest social attitudes survey put it at 22% nationally — Lancaster said the groups could appear to give communities greater control over crime risk.
“The problem comes in that there are many different views, different biases, different types of people and often the people who are most vocal might not have all the facts or may rely on information from non-credible sources,” she said, adding that moderation was important though “it’s a full-time job”.
She warned that perceptions of race, class and privilege often shaped narratives shared in those spaces.
“Very often people’s own perceptions of race and class or their own race, class and privilege factor into their bias around certain narratives. And if these are not managed well on these groups, it can lead to fear-mongering and the spread of disinformation.
“I’m not a sociologist or psychologist but people tend to believe things that conform with their own world view,” she said, noting that the world views were not necessarily statistically correct.
Her unit works to counter misinformation around the risk of being a victim of crime. “We know that the people who often don’t have the resources to have their voices heard are often the ones most at risk.
“Crime is not evenly spread across the country and communities that are often the most disadvantaged and under-resourced carry the heaviest burden and risk of harm.
“But when we have these [WhatsApp] groups and there’s this heightened sense of insecurity driven by constant alerts about potential threats, which are often not real threats, it can feel like we are more at risk than we actually are, statistically.”
If community WhatsApp groups were well-managed and fact-based, Lancaster said, they could foster social cohesion, “a sense that we’re in it together and stronger together”.
But if poorly managed, they could have the opposite effect, “leading to conflict, fracturing communities and breaking down social cohesion”.
Many South Africans turn to community WhatsApp groups for safety because trust in police remains low but experts warn that misinformation, bias and poor moderation could turn the platforms into drivers of fear rather than protection
