WhatsApp forwarded messages limit
With more than 200 million users, India is the largest market for the instant messaging service WhatsApp. Here comes one more restriction on “WhatsApp forwarded messages” in India. To curb the spread of fake messages, news and rumours in India, WhatsApp will soon limit its users to forward a message to only 5 chats or groups at a time.
With an increasing rise of fake news on WhatsApp, it is an important step to put a barrier on misinformation which spreads at a lightning speed in India through the instant messaging app. It’s surprising that India is the number one country where people forward messages, videos and memes more than any other country on the globe.
Due to the spread of fake news on WhatsApp in the past two months more than 20 people have been lynched in India. Indian government told Facebook-owned WhatsApp either find a foolproof way to stop the proliferation of fake news on its platform or face a legal action. In response to it, on Friday WhatsApp announced that it will test putting a cap on forwarding a message to not more than 5 contacts or groups at once. This feature has already rolled out in its 2.18.222 beta version.
Recently, WhatsApp rolled out the suspicious link detection alert feature in its 2.18.221 beta version. Suspicious link detection will alert users whether the link they are going to open is fake/dangerous or not. No to mention, WhatsApp has already rolled out a feature to detect forwarded messages. Now, if someone forwards a message it carries a label on the top called “Forwarded” which allows the users at the receiving end to distinguish between a forwarded or original message.
Quick forward button will no longer be available
WhatsApp is also planning to remove the quick forward button which is present next to the media messages, making it more difficult to forward a message. No doubts, genuine users would have to face issues due to this.
Appeal
I would like to appeal to the citizens of India, not to forward any message without checking its authenticity. Always check the legitimacy of the message before forwarding it.
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