WhatsApp Checks Forwarded Messages - War On Fake News (2)
- techtigerinc
- Mar 27, 2019
- 2 min read
The War on Fake News is official guys!
Social media sites like Facebook and WhatsApp who have been most affected by the scurge of fake news are adopting radical changes to the way their products work!
Frankly, with the way these changes are flowing in like a tidal wave, we expect consumers to start pushing back at some point to prevent a total loss of freedoms, due to extreme responses to #WOFN. Yep! We hashtagged it!
Last year, WhatsApp introduced the forwarding label to help curb fake news. This year, WhatsApp is taking it a step further. The messaging platform is planning to deploy a new feature, a 'Message Information' tab. Under this tab, users will see subtabs like - 'Forwarding Info' and 'Frequently Forwarded', which will allow users to see if their 'Sent' messages have been forwarded, and how many times.
WhatsApp is limiting the number of times a message is forwarded to 5 times and messages that have been forwarded more than 4 times will be marked 'Frequently Forwarded'. Previously, users could forward a message to 20 users or groups.
These features are still under development and Beta users are expected to receive these features in the next update.
Like Facebook, its parent company, WhatsApp has received a lot of criticism for enabling the spread of fake news. In July, 2018, there where riots in India where 20 people were lynched due to fake news. WhatsApp was also used to circulate #fakenews during the Brazilian elections last year.
WhatsApp uses end to end encryption for its messages which means the content of messages sent on WhatsApp cannot be read by WhatsApp. It is this privacy measure, which has made WhatsApp an attractive means of communication for many, that has brought it under the scrutiny of several governments that have demanded that WhatsApp implement back-doors in its encryption technology, to give law enforcement agencies access in order to tackle fake news.
However, popular messaging apps like WhatsApp, and technology experts argue that these backdoors would endanger the privacy people have when using messaging apps and could potentially be exploited by criminals, and governments as well.
Other new features WhatsApp has lined up for users in 2019, include an in-app browser, new emojis, a status feed and a Dark Mode.
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