WhatsApp has today imposed new restrictions on mass forwarding of messages to multiple chats. The new limit is aimed at slowing down the spread of fake news, and misinformation on the platform.
“We’ve seen a significant increase in the amount of forwarding which users have told us can feel overwhelming and can contribute to the spread of misinformation,” said WhatsApp in a blog post.
The restriction limits a user from forwarding a message that has been sent out 5 times or more to different contacts or groups, by only allowing individual shares thereafter.
This means, for a message to be forwarded for the 6th time, a user has to manually forward the message to a single chat at a time, unlike the previous rule where the limit was up to 5 chats at once.
By limiting the number of times a message can be shared with multiple chats, It will be hard for a user to send out a message that has already been shared more than 5 times on the platform.
As much as many users will find a hard time sharing already forwarded content on the platform. WhatsApp’s new restriction may fully combat spam and fake news in the end, since rises at a time when several 5G towers in the UK were set on fire over fake conspiracy theories spread on platforms like WhatsApp.