Tired of being infamous for facilitating fake news and rumours to spread like wildfire, WhatsApp has now introduced a new feature in its application to tackle the issue.
Yesterday, in a blog post, the company announced that it would now be labeling all the forwarded messages, so as to indicate that they have not been composed by the user who sent them. This feature will be able to mark all sorts of messages, from audio to text to images. “It also helps you determine if your friend or relative wrote the message they sent or if it originally came from someone else.”, the company reported.
With this new update, WhatsApp hopes to curb the usage of the domain for the propagation and circulation of false information. In countries like India and Brazil, where the application has its largest host population, this problem has led to terror spreading and countless deaths. These were, hence, the countries WhatsApp chose to Beta test in.
The company has previously attempted to address this issue by offering cash rewards to people who research on misinformation, and by asking the law-enforcement agencies to take action.
Yesterday, in a blog post, the company announced that it would now be labeling all the forwarded messages, so as to indicate that they have not been composed by the user who sent them. This feature will be able to mark all sorts of messages, from audio to text to images. “It also helps you determine if your friend or relative wrote the message they sent or if it originally came from someone else.”, the company reported.
With this new update, WhatsApp hopes to curb the usage of the domain for the propagation and circulation of false information. In countries like India and Brazil, where the application has its largest host population, this problem has led to terror spreading and countless deaths. These were, hence, the countries WhatsApp chose to Beta test in.
The company has previously attempted to address this issue by offering cash rewards to people who research on misinformation, and by asking the law-enforcement agencies to take action.
