One of the lessons we have learned especially at this COVID-19 spread time is that information can flow so quickly in this digital age and if not controlled, can cause devastation. A big example is the 5G mast that was burned down in Britain recently and if you have been on WhatsApp lately you would have seen a flurry of such messages forwarded to you especially by unsuspecting people in your contact list.
Well to stem the tide, WhatsApp has recently found a way to battle falsehood in its messaging app and the way they are approaching this is to start marking frequently forwarded messages.
The COVID-19 pandemic has seen more falsehood spread among users however, and WhatsApp has now reported that it’s going to in addition to marking the messages start limiting the times such messages can be forwarded.
WhatsApp in a blog post said “These messages are labeled with double arrows to indicate they did not originate from a close contact. In effect, these messages are less personal compared to typical messages sent on WhatsApp.”
The news comes nearly two years after WhatsApp first implemented limits on forwarded messages. Before then, you could only forward messages to a maximum of five contacts at a go. And before then, WhatsApp wasn’t even marking forwarded messages as such but started doing so in 2018 to combat fake news.
The new update will be rolling out today globally but it’s not clear if you have to update your app to start seeing this but if it’s a server-side change, then it is applied automatically and you don’t have to do anything.
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Paul Femi Balo is the founder and publisher of TechBooky. He covers artificial intelligence, African technology, digital infrastructure, enterprise technology and the global digital economy.
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