COVID-19: WhatsApp Limits Message Forwarding To Curb Wrong Medical Information

WhatsApp has heightened measures to curb the forwarding of misinformation about COVID_19 by limiting forwarded content to one chat at a time.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, April 7, the messaging application, 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.

“We believe it’s important to slow the spread of these messages down to keep WhatsApp a place for personal conversation,” the statement said.

A WhatsApp spokesman said the new limit was in place indefinitely.

The service has been imposing gradual curbs on message forwarding since 2018 after viral rumors on its platform triggered a wave of mass beatings and deaths in India.

Since last year, the Facebook-owned platform users have been able to forward a message to only five individuals or groups at once, down from an earlier limit of 20. The app also labeled any messages that had been forwarded more than five times.

These moves have seen WhatsApp record up to a 25% decrease in such messages.

Facebook and Twitter have responded to the deluge of inaccurate medical information posted in recent months by barring users from posting misleading information about the coronavirus, including denials of expert guidance and encouragement of fake treatments.

While direct content moderation is not possible on WhatsApp, where chats are protected by end-to-end encryption blocking even the app itself from viewing content shared by users, people are urged to flag suspicious content to fact-checking organizations.

WhatsApp has also enabled the WHO and national health authorities to share reliable information about the new coronavirus using automated accounts.

The COVID-19 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.