Kiran Garimella (School of Communication and Information, Rutgers University) presents his research at the inaugural Tech for Open Minds Annual Conference at Duke University on April 2, 2026. Drawing on original fieldwork in India, he discusses the methodological challenge of studying misinformation on a private, encrypted platform — including how his team built data infrastructure to collect WhatsApp content at scale — and examines what the evidence actually shows about misinformation’s effects on political behavior.
Author: Kiran Garimella, Associate Professor, School of Communication and Information, Rutgers University
Date Published: 2026-04-02