Spreading of highly forwarded messages on WhatsApp have declined by 70% do to the companies new restrictions.
The new measures were introduced in the first weeks of April, with an aim to reduce “fake news” spreading in regard to Coronavirus through the application.
This alarms were raised when it was found that misinformation was spreading like wildfire through the platform as messages could be forwarded to all contacts.
The changes meant that any message that has already been forwarded by five or more people can now only be forwarded to a single person or group.
This new finding shews that the solution WhatsApp developed is successfully slowing the spread of viral messages.
Despite the fact the users could still manually forward the message to each person individually or to groups.
Now one thing to bear in mind is that we do not know the percentage of these messages that are spreading misinformation, against those that are useful factual articles or harmless memes.
“We’ve seen a significant increase in the amount of forwarding which users have told us can feel overwhelming and can contribute to the spread of misinformation,”WhatsApp had said when it announced the new measures. “We believe it’s important to slow the spread of these messages down to keep WhatsApp a place for personal conversation.”
