WhatsApp says its measures to limit forwards have cut down spread of viral messages

Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the instant messaging platforms had become a breeding ground for the spread of misinformation about the pandemic among the people. For this the makers of the popular instant messaging app, WhatsApp in early April had introduced a new feature that would allow a message to be forwarded to a single person or a single group instead of five. When the recent changes the makers of the app have now claimed that the changes have helped to stop the spread of highly forwarded messages by 70 percent.

The recent news has meant that the instant messaging platform has successfully managed to slow down the spread of the viral messages which only spread panic and not any proper information. This is also a fact that people do have the option to manually send the message to multiple groups or individuals one by one, but despite that the messages are not being spread like it did earlier. But it cannot be said that the information behind the messages were true or not and this was what WhatsApp wanted and it was achieved.

The measure was taken by the platform after it was at the receiving end of several criticism as people called it as a breeding ground for misinformation during the pandemic situation. The WhatsApp group can have as many as 256 participants which means that the message can be spread to so many people in very less time. Many reports and organizations had also alleged that the platform was used to spread misinformation and that appeals were made to the company to take more measures to control the spread of such information which have all the potential to be harmful.

It was in 2018, when the company had started to label the forwarded messages with the tag ‘forwarded’ on the top of the message which will tell the receiver that the original sender of the message was someone else.

Photo Credits: Newsweek