WhatsApp will now label its forwarded messages: Ever since the growth of social media, governments and media houses all over the world are struggling to contain a growing phenomenon that has caused considerable controversy and trouble. Misinformation, or fake news as it is called, is a major problem these days and it involves wrong news and information being spread mainly through social media which is then accessed by millions of people in a short span of time. Traditionally most people used to depend on certain specific channels to gather information, namely, the newspapers or print media, news channels monitored by reputable media groups, and printed literature or books are written about specific subject matters by writers who are capable of claiming authority in such topics.
Rising trend of social media
However, with the rising trend of social media, it has now become possible for all common people to exchange and spread information. This has made it difficult for people to understand which information is genuine and which is not. While many types of information are quite genuine, there are literally hundreds and thousands of news bits spread across social media every day that have dubious origins. It is true that social media has really played a major role to spread vital information and help to shape up ideas and opinions about people, there are also many cases where misinformation spread through social media has caused considerable panic and even anarchy.
Canto control the spread of fake news
It is, therefore, no wonder that social media experts are now trying everything they can to control the spread of fake news. As researchers on social trends believe that the trend of fake news is likely to grow even more in the coming years, WhatsApp, a leading name in the world of social media has stepped forward to do its bit in order to try and control the spreading of wrong information. From now onwards, WhatsApp is going to label all its forwarded messages so that the receiver immediately understands that a message has been forwarded by the sender from another source and is not the main source of the information. This will be applied to all kinds of text, video, image, and audio messages. This is going to be particularly useful in controlling misinformation that is so common in the case of group chats.
Messaging app
The messaging app of WhatsApp has already been used multiple times to spread wrong information that has affected many people in a negative way. Rumors regarding child traffickers and child abductions have led to multiple deaths in India since May. In Brazil, misinformation regarding the yellow fever vaccine that has been spread through WhatsApp has even led to the resurge of the disease in great numbers. In order to control the spreading of such fake news, WhatsApp has been beta testing this feature for quite some time and believes that marking the forwarded messages will help to manage the problem to some degree. WhatsApp has also offered cash rewards to researchers investigating misinformation that is spread through this app. They are also working with fact-checking organizations and local law enforcement specialists to combat the issue of fake news.
