WhatsApp comes up with 'Forwarded' label feature to deal with fake news

WhatsApp comes up with 'Forwarded' label feature to deal with fake news

WhatsApp comes up with 'Forwarded' label feature to deal with fake news on Business Standard. It will allow users to determine if friends sent a message or if it came from somewhere else

Latest News In its endeavour to deal with the problem of fake news and the spread of misinformation, instant messaging app WhatsApp has introduced a new feature, which will label all forwarded messages.

The announcement comes at the heels of the Indian government directing the Mountain View, California tech giant to curb the spread of rumours and hoaxes on its platform. The government showed strong displeasure at the recent incidents of lynchings, which allegedly took place due to misinformation spread through WhatsApp messages.

The Indian government had called upon the app to recognise inauthentic content and block it before it has a chance to spread. WhatsApp wrote to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology last week and said even though it can’t read messages due to end-to-end encryption, the company will take steps to reduce misinformation on its platform.

One of its promised steps was the launch of a feature which labels all forwarded messages and

provides a chance for people to think before they forward something or believe a text that has been sent en masse.

The company has been testing this feature in India for quite some time even as it launched it globally on Wednesday. “Starting today, WhatsApp will indicate which messages you receive have been forwarded to you. This extra context will help make one-onone and group chats easier to follow,� it stated in a press statement.

READ MORE Source : BS