After limiting viral messages from being forwarded to many chats at one time, WhatsApp has seen a 70% drop in the spread of these messages in less than a month.
The limitation basically prevents anyone from forwarding a message, that was previously shared five times already, from re-sharing it again to more than one chat, at one go. Meaning, to share a viral message, you’d have to hit that forward button again and again for every chat or group you want to share it with.
Image credit: Daily Mail
This was a move to put hinder the spread of COVID-19 misinformation through WhatsApp – you know, the kind that starts with “a colleague of mind sent me this”, or “my aunt’s niece got this information from a friend in the government”, which is then followed by bogus claims of what the virus is and can do.
As it turns out, the sheer amount of work that is required to share something more than once was too much for many, hence why we see the drop in the spread of viral messages. Looking forward, this is a feature that will mostly like stick since spreading false information has been going on long before the pandemic, and will likely continue to spread after the matter.
Another way to curb the spread of misinformation is to fact-check your messages – simply copy and paste the text into a WhatsApp fact-checking bot, that was developed by the World Health Organization, to get your info verified.