Private messaging apps are under increased scrutiny at the moment due to the high usage during the “Lockdown” period of the Coronavirus pandemic.
There is a lot of misinformation being spread online and this is only heightened at the moment by the torrent on channels information in available through.
WhatsApp are playing their part in trying to reduce this though placing new limits on the forwarding of messages, messages that have been identified as “highly forwarded”, a chain of 5 or more people, can only be forwarded to a single person.
This has been designed to reduce the speed that misinformation can travel through WhatsApp, meaning that people should’t be spammed with “fake news”.
“We know many users forward helpful information, as well as funny videos, memes, and reflections or prayers they find meaningful. In recent weeks, people have also used WhatsApp to organize public moments of support for frontline health workers,” the company, now part of the Facebook group stated in a blog post.
“However, 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. We believe it’s important to slow the spread of these messages down to keep WhatsApp a place for personal conversation.”
Historically it has been possible for a user to forward items of their choosing to as many as 256 people, and the end to end encryption of WhatsApp would make it impossible for authorities to place the originator.
Back in 2018 the company began the huge tasks of restricting and identifying forwarded content, marking a message that had been repeatedly forwarded with two arrows.
What they have now introcuced is a restriction to the ability to mass forward, therefor you could still send the message to 256 people, but you would need to send it 46 times rather than just once.
WhatsApp like many social networking companies are under increased scrutiny at present as for many they are the only means of contacting people, Zoom has recently been banned by the Taiwanese Government due to security concerns and YouTube has outright banned all conspiracy theory videos falsely linking coronavirus symptoms to 5G networks.
WhatsApp like other companies has been working with Governments and health organisations, promoting a bot made by the World Health Organization that provides information about the disease that has been vetted by healthcare professionals. The app has been used by more than 10 million people. WhatsApp also donated $1 million to the International Fact-Checking Network.
