WhatsApp, a popular mobile chat application, has today (Tuesday) announced that it will be reducing the number of “highly-forwarded” messages on chats from five down to one.
This would mean that a message forwarded by someone who is not a close contact can only be re-sent to one other contact in order to curb the spread of unverified/fake news.
In a blogpost, Whatsapp said that: “Last year we introduced users to the concept of messages that have been forwarded many times. These messages are labelled with double arrows to indicate they did not originate from close contact. In effect, these messages are less personal compared to typical messages sent on WhatsApp. We are now introducing a limit so that these messages can only be forwarded to one chat at a time.”
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“As a private messaging service, we’ve taken several steps over the years to help keep conversations intimate. For example, we previously set limits on forwarded messages to constrain virality. At the time, we saw a 25 per cent decrease in total message forwards globally,” the company said.
Although not all forwarded messages are bad, as many users are indeed using the platform to forward helpful information, as well as funny videos, memes, and reflections or prayers that they find meaningful, WhatsApp says it has recently seen a significant increase in the amount of forwarding which users have complained of being overwhelming and can contribute to the spread of misinformation.
Conspiracy theories about the origin of the novel coronavirus, purported preventions, and cures to the virus have been shared widely via the platform of late. This is the first time in recent history that a pandemic is being reported in real-time and battling uncertainty about the disease has proved just as difficult as fighting misinformation about it.
“We believe it’s important to slow the spread of these messages down to keep WhatsApp a place for personal conversation,” the company said in its blog post.
In addition to this change, WhatsApp says it is working directly with NGOs and governments, including the World Health Organization (WHO) and over 20 national health ministries, to help connect people with accurate information.
“Together these trusted authorities have sent hundreds of millions of messages directly to people requesting information and advice. You can learn more about these efforts, as well as how to submit potential myths, hoaxes and rumours to fact-checking organizations, on our Coronavirus Information Hub,” it said.
With billions of people unable to see their friends and family in person due to COVID-19, people are relying on WhatsApp more than ever to communicate.
WhatsApp’s over 2 billion users around the world feel secure talking to doctors, teachers, and isolated loved ones via WhatsApp during this crisis. This is because all messages and calls on WhatsApp are end-to-end encrypted by default to give users a secure place for their most personal conversations.
believe that now more than ever people need to be able to connect privately. Our teams are hard at work to keep WhatsApp running reliably during this unprecedented global crisis. We’ll continue to listen to your feedback and improve ways for people to share with each other on WhatsApp,” the company said.
