Last month, CNN and other news organizations found that the app had been used to share a variety of false information about “cures” for COVID-19 and hoaxes about military activity related to the disease. But introducing more friction helped to slow the rate of forwarding overall - in the past year, WhatsApp says, forwards are down 25 percent around the world.īut amid a huge surge in use related to the pandemic, WhatsApp has come under the spotlight for the way it can be used to spread misinformation. It’s a soft limit: nothing prevents you from forwarding the same message over and over again to different people. Last year, the company began limiting the number of people you can forward a single message to to five. It also began labeling forwarded messages for the first time, and adding two arrows to show that a message has been repeatedly forwarded. In 2018, WhatsApp began experimenting with limits on the number of times a message could be forwarded. This triggered a crisis in India, where WhatsApp was linked to mob violence. Initially, these messages were not labeled as forwards, and the end-to-end encryption in WhatsApp could make it almost impossible for authorities to determine who might be using the app to spread hate speech or calls to violence. We believe it’s important to slow the spread of these messages down to keep WhatsApp a place for personal conversation.”įor much of WhatsApp’s existence, it was easy for users to forward a single message to as many as 256 people with just a few taps. “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. In recent weeks, people have also used WhatsApp to organize public moments of support for frontline health workers,” the company, which is part of Facebook, said in a blog post.
“We know many users forward helpful information, as well as funny videos, memes, and reflections or prayers they find meaningful. The move is designed to reduce the speed with which information moves through WhatsApp, putting truth and fiction on a more even footing. Starting today, messages that have been identified as “highly forwarded” - sent through a chain of five or more people - can only be forwarded to a single person. And it’s also being used by health authorities like the CDC in the US, the World Health Organization, and the NHS in the UK to answer people’s pressing questions about coronavirus.With heightened scrutiny on the potential of private message apps to spread misinformation related to the coronavirus pandemic, WhatsApp on Tuesday said it would place new limits on the forwarding of messages. After all, it’s helping to keep people connected with friends and families at a time when they can’t visit in person. Not all bad: WhatsApp is by no means being used only for negative purposes during the coronavirus pandemic. These measures won’t stop you from forwarding a message to lots of different people one by one, but they introduce a degree of friction, which seems to have worked: in the last year, forwards are down 25% around the world, according to WhatsApp. Last year, the company cut the number of people you can forward a message to, limiting it to five. WhatsApp also added two arrows to show a message had been repeatedly forwarded. Before that point, users could forward a message to as many as 256 people, and they were not labeled as forwards. Some background: WhatsApp started limiting forwarding in July 2018, after a spate of mob lynchings in India that were linked to messages shared in WhatsApp groups. WhatsApp said it has 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.” And there are lots of reports of people sharing rumors, fake “cures” for coronavirus (none exist), and conspiracy theories on the app. Why now? WhatsApp has been used to share false content around the world for years, but concern about the issue has reached a peak during the coronavirus crisis. WhatsApp is private and end-to-end encrypted, which is a boon for security but makes it a particularly potent breeding ground for misinformation, as there’s no way to see the content of messages. The idea is to slow the spread of viral information, giving truth a chance to catch up with falsehoods. From today, messages identified as “highly forwarded” can be forwarded to only a single person as opposed to five, the company, which is owned by Facebook, said in a blog post. The news: WhatsApp has said it will implement new limits on message forwarding amid growing concerns that it is being used to spread misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic.