COVID fallout: WhatsApp reduces forward message limit to 1 chat at a time to curb fake news

April 8: The outbreak of COVID-19 has its impact on a gamut of services globally. Now WhatsApp has also made some significant change in its policy to curb the spread of fake news during the coronavirus pandemic. With a view to limit the circulation of fake news and misinformation through its platform, WhatsApp on Tuesday narrowed down the limit of frequently forwarded messages to one chat at a time. This comes as an update to the existing limit that was allowing users to forward a message for up to five times.

The pandemic, which has killed more than 70,000 people worldwide, has been accompanied by what the World Health Organization (WHO) has called an “infodemic” of misinformation, prompting governments and other authorities to urge social media companies to do more to combat the problem.

The new move by the Facebook-owned company is aimed to help slow the spread of misinformation during the coronavirus outbreak that’s impacting people worldwide. WhatsApp was recently also spotted offering a feature to let users verify forwarded messages online. A magnifying glass icon is available next to the frequently forwarded messages on some of the recent WhatsApp beta versions that allows users to do a Web search and ascertain the authenticity of such messages.

The messaging app said the WhatsApp Coronavirus Information Hub has been launched to provide simple, actionable guidance for health workers, educators, community leaders, nonprofits, local governments and local businesses that rely on platform to communicate. The new update is meant to restrict users from a frequently forwarded message to more than one user at once. However, this doesn’t mean that users won’t be able to forward a frequently forwarded message to multiple users at all. They can still copy a message and paste in the text box of various chats.

WhatsApp, which has more than 2 billion users worldwide, said in a blog post it made the change after observing a “significant increase” in the number of forwards since the start of the coronavirus crisis.