WhatsApp is now imposing a five-message limit on forwards in India, after violent mobs (most being villagers new to smartphones) have fallen for hoax forwards and rumours, reportedly killing over a dozen people in India. The decision was taken to help ease the Indian authorities’ struggle to combat fake news.
Indian users will be able to forward messages to not more than five people or groups, or a combination of both. However, other countries will be able to send a maximum of 20 messages personally and on groups, which is also a big jump from WhatsApp’s earlier 250-message limit. WhatsApp is also removing the forward option next to images and videos to hopefully slow down and alter any misinformation spreading over WhatsApp.
WhatsApp’s blog post read that it will launch a test run to limit forwarding, ‘a country where people forward media more than anywhere else in the world. “We believe that these changes — which we’ll continue to evaluate — will help keep WhatsApp the way it was designed to be: a private messaging app,” the company said.
WhatsApp also put a ‘forward’ label on all forwarded messages in order to make it easier for users to identify them, in addition to advertisements in leading newspapers about tips to fight misinformation, in several different languages. But the Indian government was still unsatisfied and said that the country’s IT ministry approached WhatsApp with the responsibility of bringing “more effective solutions to the table to ensure greater accountability and facilitate enforcement of law beyond the existing efforts towards labelling forwards and identifying fake news.”
India has been a victim of the ‘fake news fiasco’ for a couple of years now but the recent lynchings across the countries and the alarming number of deaths that have occurred by a single forward called for a much more serious action on WhatsApp’s part.
“When rumours and fake news get propagated by mischief mongers, the medium used for such propagation cannot evade responsibility and accountability. If they remain mute spectators, they are liable to be treated as abettors and thereafter face consequent legal action,” said the IT Ministry in a statement.
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