Fake news and misinformation are a big menace today on social media networks. These messages usually carry outrageous or shocking stories which help it to spread like wildfire. So when such messages are being spread, your friend whom you haven't spoken to in two years will forward it to you to keep you safe from harm.
To combat the spread of misinformation on its platform during this coronavirus pandemic, WhatsApp is now slowing the spread of viral messages in bulk to keep the platform "personal and private."
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"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. We believe it's important to slow the spread of these messages down to keep WhatsApp a place for personal conversation," WhatsApp said.
The Facebook-owned company says the changes will only affect frequently forwarded messages to one chat at a time. Sometime in 2019, WhatsApp lowered the number of messages that could be forwarded to chats from 20 to 5 chats. Now the company says viral messages can only be forwarded to one chat at a time.
Any user that wants to forward a message to multiple chats and groups will need to select, tap forward. and then choose a new chat multiple times. This tedious method will discourage anyone from spreading misinformation on the messaging service.
WhatsApp says affected messages will be "labeled with double arrows
to indicate they did not originate from a close contact." This means the viral message which might in the form of texts, images, videos, and voice notes likely originated outside of your network and were sent multiple times from one person to another before they reached you.