Whatsapp rejects India Governments demand for message traceability

On the issue of tracing the origin of fake messages, the Indian government and WhatsApp appear to be at loggerheads. Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad met the Chief Executive Officer of WhatsApp on Tuesday and asked for the instant messaging app to reveal to the Indian government the origins of messages that are used to spread false information. WhatsApp , however,  turned down the request on Thursday.

Whatsapp said that building traceability will undermine end-to-end encryption and affect privacy protection for users. Emphasising that people use its platform for all kinds of “sensitive conversations”, the Facebook-owned company said the focus is on educating people about misinformation.

The government of India has made a repeated request to WhatsApp over the months to control the “rampant circulation of irresponsible messages in large volumes” on its platform. After fake messages circulated on WhatsApp triggered several incidents of mob lynchings in recent weeks in India, the Facebook-owned messaging platform published full-page advertisements in leading Indian newspapers advising users on how to identify false information.

With general elections slated to be held next year in India, the government is taking a stern view of use of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp for spread of misinformation.