In a bid to curb the spread of fake news, WhatsApp began a new restriction on the number of contacts a user is permitted to forward a message to at once. This is only a slight change from what it has been for a few months now-where messages can only be forwarded to not more than five contacts at a time.
The presence of the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a lot of misinformation. Such misinformation can have dire implications. The messaging platform is expected to further reduce the statistics of misinformation on the social media platform.
In July, 2019, multiple deaths were recorded in India as a result of a viral circulation of fake news. This strategy is considered to have since yielded a 25% decrease is misinformation.
However, it has not been confirmed whether this feature which was recently launched would work on older versions of WhatsApp or not. It is hoped that when it is fully implemented, a user would only be allowed to forward a message to one contact at a time after the first five attempts.
Besides, the Facebook-owned messaging service has been devising ways to make the platform truly private and safe for its over 2 billion users worldwide, given the speed with which messages could be spread through it.
This means that the spread of fake news and propaganda using Whatsapp would be largely curbed while legitimate use of the “forward message” feature is not affected. The broadcast option would still be available to users using the platform to promote the products or services.
Also, for WhatsApp to Curb the Spread of Fake News, newer versions of Whatsapp will come with app integrations for COVID-19 real-time reliable reporting and vital data, needed to curb the spread of the virus. One of them is the WHO Chatbot. More features are to be anticipated.
