BG Staff
In an attempt to make the world’s most widely used messaging App successful, Facebook owned company WhatsApp now puts limit on message forwarding to fight fake news.
Users will be blocked from forwarding messages to more than five individuals or groups (both number counted). The new rules of the messaging service is being rolling out worldwide in order to fight the spread of misinformation which is the biggest concern for Facebook right now.
According to Reuters, the new policy was announced by the company’s vice-president for policy and communications, Victoria Grand at an event in Jakarta on Monday.
The idea is to help keep WhatsApp the way it was designed to be, a private messaging app.
WhatsApp flagged the forwarded messages as ‘forwarded’ last year so users understand it is a forwarded message but the issue seem to be getting out of control because of the way the fake news were originally drafted and the sender’s information was kept secret.
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According to the critics, the new forwarded mechanism “strips away the identity of the sender and allows messages to spread virally with little accountability”.
