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In a Bid To Curtail Spread of Misinformation, Facebook's WhatsApp Now Tells Users When a Message Has Been Forwarded (hindustantimes.com)

Posted by msmash on from the too-little-too-late? dept.

In a bid to fight spread of misinformation on its platform, Facebook-owned WhatsApp announced on Tuesday that it is launching a new feature globally that will highlight when a message has been forwarded versus composed by the sender. At the centre of the issue is high-volume sharing of misleading and false information, often arching political and religious sentiments, that is tricking a significant number of WhatsApp users. (WhatsApp is used by more than a billion users worldwide.) From a report: From now on, WhatsApp will put a "forwarded" label on these messages. "This extra context will help make one-on-one and group chats easier to follow. It will also help you determine if your friend or relative wrote the message they sent or if it came from someone else," the company said in a note. "WhatsApp cares deeply about your safety. We encourage you to think before sharing forwarded messages. As a reminder, you can report spam or block a contact in one tap and always reach out to WhatsApp directly for help," it added. To see this new forwarded label, users are required to have the newest supported version of WhatsApp on their phones. Additionally, this week the company relaunched a campaign in India as part of which it is running full-page ads on several newspapers in the country to create awareness about the issue.

65 comments

  1. Slippery Slope to Total Censorship by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This is just a step in the direction of making us think that it is the big mega-corporation's job to censor what what we read.

    Stop using anything from Facebook, please. Make them a small corporation again. Let them thrive in China where censorship will help them make money. But get them the heck out of my free United States democracy. They are dangerous.

    1. Re:Slippery Slope to Total Censorship by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Overreact much?

      This is Facebook finally, finally, deciding to add a snippet of highly relevant and useful metadata to some posts. Metadata that most every other service, including Twitter, has added routinely from the get-go.

    2. Re: Slippery Slope to Total Censorship by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What they are doing is akin to putting a FWD: prefix in your subject when you press forward button. Of all the things to throw a fit over... wow. If you like your chain mails you can keep your stupid chain mails, Jesus.

      How about a checkbox so we can opt in to bounce all forwarded messages. Going to cry when everyone decides to individually self censor your spam?

    3. Re:Slippery Slope to Total Censorship by Falos · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm all for people abandoning facebook, especially the type in question (ie parrots inside echochambers).

      I'm aware that censorship is a broadly-applicable word. It applies even to private platforms muting "hatespeech". Legal censorship is a thing. You can censor whatever you want, you don't even have to adhere to any concrete standards, you can do fuckall. That tends to contradict the noble posturing usually found nearby, however.

      Anyway I'll happily swing the word around. But it doesn't belong here. This is a fucking FW tag. Nothing removed or prevented.

      FW:FWD:FW:RE:FW:funny read to the end!! isn't censored. Though it probably will be if you post it anywhere intelligent.

    4. Re:Slippery Slope to Total Censorship by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yes, you're right. If there's anything anti-censorship activists can agree on, it's that providing people with more information is bad.

    5. Re:Slippery Slope to Total Censorship by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It's the sales pitch that done it in. "We're doing this to curtail misinformation", has become highly politicised under a different term, that war on "fake news"*. So while personally I don't have a problem at all with adding a tag that says "this was forwarded from $source", at the same time I can easily see why people mistrust the announcement, exactly because of the spin.

      So yeah, nice try but salespitch fail.

      * And before you go pointing fingers at that disliked-by-CNN party well-known to have bandied around the term a lot recently, "progressive" "sociology" departments full of "critical theory" derps have done much the same thing. If they agreed with it, it was facts, if they didn't agree with it, it suddenly had to be relative, seen in context, etc. And they've been doing that at least since the '70s, though the hard core that originated "critical theory" has been at it since at least the '30s. Criticising things that you disagree with is the whole bread and butter of "critical theory" to the points that they now consider themselves "post fact". Academics that don't deal in verifyable facts. And still get to call themselves professor. Right.

    6. Re:Slippery Slope to Total Censorship by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is a measurable fact, though, that misinformation is spreading primarily over social media and some of these fake news have caused a lot of harm. It's also not about the question of whose to decide, we're talking about falsehoods that are easy to check for anyone or have even been created as a joke or satire in the first place. "Controversial" Youtube videos are a good example, half of the videos whose authenticity people discuss have been created by marketing agencies and put out of their original advertisement context. Too many sites just copy and not enough sites create actual news. It's the whisper game in real life.

      "progressive" "sociology" departments full of "critical theory" derps have done much the same thing. If they agreed with it, it was facts, if they didn't agree with it, it suddenly had to be relative, seen in context, etc.

      I've worked at four different universities in the humanities and while there is a lot to criticize and not everything should IMHO count as science, what you describe in the above quote simply does not exist at all. It's a complete myth that totally misrepresents academia and the problems of the scientific approaches in some of the "softer" disciplines within the humanities. On a side note, there is absolutely nothing wrong with criticizing things you disagree with, neither in academia nor outside of it, and you and I just did. So get off your high horse.

    7. Re:Slippery Slope to Total Censorship by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      Is the "Fw:" suffix added to email a form of censorship? Did it lead to greater censorship?

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    8. Re:Slippery Slope to Total Censorship by mjwx · · Score: 1

      This is just a step in the direction of making us think that it is the big mega-corporation's job to censor what what we read.

      How? This is basically the equivalent of mail clients placing FW: in front of a forwarded message...

      If anything I'd rather know if a message I receive is genuinely from the sender or something they've copied.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
    9. Re:Slippery Slope to Total Censorship by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "...free United States democracy." - Good one :)

    10. Re:Slippery Slope to Total Censorship by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 1

      Is the "Fw:" suffix added to email a form of censorship? Did it lead to greater censorship?

      Er, the Fw: prefix would be a form of oppression, if you couldn't $^&^& edit it or remove it.

    11. Re:Slippery Slope to Total Censorship by antdude · · Score: 1

      Just stop using anything including /.. :P

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
  2. Not really. by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is just a step in the direction of making us think that it is the big mega-corporation's job to censor what what we read.

    Actually, It's one mega-corp trying to stop efforts from people who are deliberately misinforming you on their platform. They have no control of information you get elsewhere.

    Let them thrive in China where censorship will help them make money. But get them the heck out of my free United States democracy. They are dangerous.

    What's more dangerous is people that get their information from the internet without checking the credibility of the source. Facebook is full of these kind of people and they are doing real damage to our democracies.

    Stop using anything from Facebook

    I agree, social media has done far more harm to the world than good.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    1. Re:Not really. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Walled gardens are great!

    2. Re:Not really. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yep. They are.

    3. Re:Not really. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

      What's more dangerous is people that get their information from the internet without checking the credibility of the source.

      Translation: If it comes from CNN, it's kosher. If it comes from somewhere not approved by the media establishment, it's verboten.
      amirite?

    4. Re:Not really. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No.

    5. Re:Not really. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      No, retarded traitorbait. If you can prove CNN is wrong about something, do so. The point of journalism is it's on the record and people stand by it. Unlike Trump or Faux Views.

    6. Re:Not really. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      I agree, social media has done far more harm to the world than good.

      Agreed, though any step taken that increases transparency is welcome. Getting people to mistrust "News" from non credible sources is a hard problem, and one that Mr. Trump is making worse.

      I wish to see him rot in jail. Unfortunately lying to the people is not a crime, but I think, if your in a high enough position it really should be at least if it is blatant and repetitive enough. Still Mueller has a lot of potential material, so I can hope...

      What's worse lying to hide an affair or lying repeatedly to the American people about everything while he destroys out alliances and dances with dictators? The republicans would have you believe that the first is unforgivable, along with bad email habits, but the second is no big deal.

      We are taught from movies like Superman and others to grow up and honour things like truth, justice, rule of law, equal rights under law, the american way, etc, etc.

      Now we have lies, corruption, the best swap, it doesn't matter if your a republican, can't discriminate against (christian) religions, but Christians can discriminate against others. tearing families apart, destroying good people just for standing up to corruption, and of course the if the president does it it is not illegal again argument...

      For a brief minute today I thought that the religious right might be satisfied with their Faustian bargain. They got enough male judges to help overturn a woman's right to choose, and all it cost them was decency, health care, the debt, the future, our alliances, and truth. Still after all that I don't think they will stop voting for Trump. He gives them what they want.

      You know what that makes those like that? Evil. Simply put evil is not about specific ambitious so much as it is about not caring about how you get to your goal. The religious right embraced Trump the same way a drug user would embrace a dealer. They got their fix and likely are going to want more of it.

    7. Re:Not really. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you think corruption and lies are anything new in the political arena, then you must have just entered college and just got your right to vote and only now started paying attention

      Who the f*ck cares if he had an affair, that's his own damn personal business. The fact that the left leaning media is pulling this kind of cr*p just shows how little they really have on him. They're looking for any bitty morsel to run a big headline and get clicks from their left leaning sheep.

      As for him making "alliances" with a dictator. He is the 1st f*cking president since the Korean war to actually meet the dictator and hopefully start building a rapport with the North Koreans and end this BS that has been going on for decades that no other president has done much else about.

      It's kinda funny for all the left leaning anti trump posts flood social media it was like crickets for the 12-24hours after he met with North Korea, since the left leaning media couldn't come up with anything good to smear him though the mud and were probably silently saying oh sh*t he might actually finally get something done with this issue.

      As far as Mueller having anything on him, I also call BS. If they had anything of significance on him they would have already dragged it out being we are nearly 2 years into Trump's 1st term

    8. Re:Not really. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Let's cut the bull - this is a deplatforming exercise to stop conservative posts, anything which can hurt the DNC propaganda machine.

      Don't pretend it is anything else. Censor or say 'false' whatever isn't on the DNC approved list.

      (Don't get me started about people who twitter share #WALKWAY having to prove themselves multiple times, take pictures of themselves etc - as it goes against the DNC propaganda machine.

      DNC / lefties acting like little Stalinists - If you can debate, remove the message - then soon after the messenger.

    9. Re: Not really. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Anonymous sources say Donald Trump killed sacred Japanese fish by over-feeding them!"

      (9 hours of outrage, article shared 1.8m times, re-reported globally, accepted as fact by mindless morons like you)

      "Oops! It didn't happen. We've added a 4-word retraction to the bottom of the article."

      (Repeat this process every day. Over and over. Claim to not be fake news. Integrity, etc, etc)

    10. Re:Not really. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Credibility, you mean corporate approved MSM, bought and paid for by the .01%
      Snowden...*drop the mic*

    11. Re:Not really. by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 1

      Actually, It's one mega-corp trying to stop efforts from people who are deliberately misinforming you on their platform. They have no control of information you get elsewhere.

      Two platforms so far, owned by the same corp.

      Good thing we don't have a few internet mega corps who own multiple platforms. And all lean in the same direction, politically.

    12. Re:Not really. by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 1
      Short Facebook shares now!

      If you don't want false information, what are you doing on Facebook? even the stuff your friends post on Facebook is fake!

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    13. Re:Not really. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      DNC / lefties acting like little Stalinists

      I am a Stalinist and I assure you we have absolutely nothing to do with the US Democrats or the postmodern left. We are actually not giving a single fuck about what Facebook does to their platforms.

    14. Re:Not really. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What's more dangerous is people that get their information from the internet without checking the credibility of the source.

      Translation: If it comes from CNN, it's kosher. If it comes from somewhere not approved by the media establishment, it's verboten.
      amirite?

      No, ya blithering dittohead! When you read the news anywhere the obligation is on...wait for it!...--->YOU---to engage your brain and critically think about what you are reading. Yes, that's right. You are responsible for evaluating the news you consume. This includes verifying information by doing a bit of fact checking yourself. Anything less than this leaves gullible people, such as yourself, easy prey to those who would manipulate public opinion.

    15. Re:Not really. by Scroatzilla · · Score: 2

      There is one big problem with your argument: The notion of "credibility" might *seem* objective. However, there is a little cottage industry ("fact checking") that *asserts* credibility while pushing misleading or false information (e.g. Snopes).
      Social media is such a new and powerful paradigm shift in human communication that the knee-jerk reaction by well meaning folks to "stop false information" is understandable, but also extremely naive. Of course the algorithm and/or human beings will inevitably consider > to be false and the source of the > to be non-credible.
      So, the only *free* thing to do is let information flow, allow people to decide for themselves, and allow things to happen as they happen. The only "destruction" of democracy that I see is that > are losing their ability to shape public opinion because human beings are able to share information more quickly and easily with each other.
      I presume (hope?) that, if non-censorship prevails, we'll have a nice average of really really stupid and really really intelligent people who steer us approximately toward the improvement of humanity. My hope for the immediate future is that we all stop fanning the flames of far-left and far-right voices.

    16. Re:Not really. by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

      So, the only *free* thing to do is let information flow, allow people to decide for themselves, and allow things to happen as they happen. The only "destruction" of democracy that I see is that > are losing their ability to shape public opinion because human beings are able to share information more quickly and easily with each other.

      That only thing they are doing is informing people if it's a mass communication, they aren't blocking information. Also, you greatly underestimate the ability to manipulate people. Have you forgotten Cambridge Analytica so quickly?

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    17. Re:Not really. by another_twilight · · Score: 1

      And all lean in the same direction, politically.

      Yeah. Towards 'corporatism'. Everything else is spin.

    18. Re:Not really. by another_twilight · · Score: 1

      pushing misleading or false information (e.g. Snopes).

      Your use of the word 'pushing' makes it sound as though Snopes has an agenda that it is pursuing. I'd like to see some evidence to back up that assertion.

      I've seen Snopes perform sloppy research. I've seen articles that were improved over time.

      Snopes is no more authorative than Wikipedia, but both have the same thing going for them. They cite sources.

      Snopes tells you what it did to reach the conclusion it has drawn. If those sources are incomplete, that's apparent. If information is from a source you consider biased, that's apparent. It raises the bar from the usual assertion and denial and that is invaluable.

      Rather than criticising Snopes for not being perfect or unbiased, how about applauding the methodology? Encouraging people to demand sources and citations and then to check them, themselves is the only way to elevate conversation out of the 'he said/she said' nonsense of sensationalism.

      There a many ways to shape perception by providing more information, rather than just restricting it. 'Letting it flow' is not an answer to information manipulation.
      Criticism and analysis is, and whether Snopes has an agenda or is simply imperfect, they are at least attempting to provide both.

  3. Facebook and whatapp? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I'll have to ask my grandma what those are like.

  4. Luckily we have our state-approved media! by thesjaakspoiler · · Score: 0

    WSJ & CNN, Fair & balanced!

  5. WhatsApp Flags Forwarded Messages by grep+-v+'.*'+* · · Score: 2

    highlight when a message has been forwarded versus composed by the sender

    So I suppose it'll also tag a copy/paste sequence directly from another message? That's just as hard (easy) as forwarding. (Actually, it's ever-so-slightly harder, but not really.)

    What if I dictate it verbally? (if nothing else, split screen or 2nd screen.)

    What if I paraphrase it?

    So all they're actually doing is highlighting the FORWARD indicator. Like that's going to stop anyone from forwarding the message to start with? I really don't get this. (I really don't get Facebook / Twitter either, but that's another matter and just me.)

    --
    If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
    1. Re:WhatsApp Flags Forwarded Messages by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't worry. We have that case covered also.

      If an unusually high proportion of your commentary slips through the approveable-ideas filter, an automated system will determine which spy agency or agencies you could most plausibly be working for, then blows your cover.

    2. Re:WhatsApp Flags Forwarded Messages by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't worry. We have that case covered also.

      If an unusually high proportion of your commentary slips through the approveable-ideas filter, an automated system will determine which spy agency or agencies you could most plausibly be working for, then blows your cover.

      Now, that would be a tag I could really get behind! It would be really nifty if a tag on a message had a preface attached to it saying something like "This 'news' item brought to you by the KGB." Must get to work implementing this right away.

    3. Re:WhatsApp Flags Forwarded Messages by drew_kime · · Score: 1

      So I suppose it'll also tag a copy/paste sequence directly from another message? That's just as hard (easy) as forwarding. (Actually, it's ever-so-slightly harder, but not really.)

      Never worked tech support, have you?

      --
      Nope, no sig
  6. A billion users? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Up until last week I had never even heard of -Whatsapp and I don't even know of anyone who uses it. So there is no way in hell that 1/8th of the world's population uses it. I call bullshit.

    1. Re:A billion users? by Narcocide · · Score: 1

      Bots are users too!

    2. Re:A billion users? by sysstemlord · · Score: 1

      Almost 100% of people in my country use it for all communication. It depends on where you live.

  7. Finally by Ubi_NL · · Score: 1

    I think their reasoning is bullshit, but i found forwarding a message in whatsapp a pain in the neck, as i always needed to send another message to say that i forwarded the previous one from Jack.

    This is whatsapp catching up with an email feature we had 30 years ago.

    --

    If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
  8. Forwarded? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How does facebook know if a message has been forwarded if there is end to end encryption???

    They must have access to the content of the message to do that.
    Isn't it supposed to be secure?

    1. Re:Forwarded? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      End-to-end encryption, and Facebook has the keys to it.
      No, just kidding, the app just notices that you pressed the forward button and tags the message appropriately. This does not stop anyone from copying and pasting messages, like bots will do.

    2. Re:Forwarded? by sysstemlord · · Score: 1

      No they don't use the message contents to know if it's forwarded. In WhatsApp there is a forward button on each message, if it's pressed, they add the tag.

  9. Re:creimer is fat and a gay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Look - a squirrel!

  10. Re: creimer is fat and a gay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I pity someone who spends their time making personal attacks against someone who hasn't posted here for months.

  11. Re:Where are the 'meddling' posts? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Here's what's fun. Most big media execs aren't Jewish (many, but not most). Facebook, however, was created and is owned and managed by a Jew.

  12. Re: not a Slippery Slope to Total Censorship by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It is a slippery slope to users being more informed about the information they receive, so they can make informed judgements about it.

  13. Excellent strategy for dividing people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    because now the government can send you the appropriated news directly, and stop people from sharing ideas, observations, or anything else they've learnt.

    This is not about trying to stop misinformation, it's about controlling information by making stupid Americans only trust what Gov tells them.

  14. Forwarded From: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I wonder what the implications of forwarded From XXX would be.
    This from would contain the original person who wrote it (or yes, pasted it)

    Often the question with this kind of information is 'where did it come from'

    1. Re:Forwarded From: by xvan · · Score: 1

      I'm concerned with the privacy of this. Given that the ID is your phone number, an that's resolved to either a local/default nickname by the phone, such feature may have the consequence of spreading the phone number of the original sender without intention.

    2. Re:Forwarded From: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, you are spreading the message from the original sender...why not the number? Messages only really make sense with the context of the sender.

      Though I am not sure on this as a feature. it could have unintended consequences.

  15. safety by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 1

    Ah yes, it's all for our safety.

    I wouldn't trust that bit of info there, comrade!

  16. Rumor number by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    What they need is a rumor number (the idea was developed by a friend of mine in high school).

    The idea is this:
    If I tell you something that I witnessed that is a rumor number of zero.
    If you then tell someone else, then it is a rumor number of one.
    They can then tell someone with a rumor number of two and so on.

    Each forwarding would increase the rumor number, so if you get a message with a rumor number of 156, you can be pretty sure that it has "been around" and might not be the most reliable message (think the game telephone), whereas ones with number of 2-4, might just be worth thinking about.

  17. Workaround by iTrawl · · Score: 1

    "If you're a true friend, please copy/paste this to your friends, don't forward it."

    I'm seeing this on Facebook once in a while

    --
    "Everybody's naked underneath" -- The Doctor
  18. Re: creimer is fat and a gay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Cool story, creimer.

  19. Was a big relive. by SoniaHe58076795 · · Score: 0

    This is really amazing, my whole life I've never met any one who does it better, big shout out to mikejosh (@) cyber-wizard.com , I contacted him and he's absolutely the best when it comes to INCREASING CREDIT SCORE, GRADES CHANGE, FACEBOOK, EMAIL and WHATS APP in fact he does all sort of hack, interesting part is he works with Proofs. He increased myself and for other of my buddies' credit worthiness within hours. I can strongly assure you that he's one of the best ethical hackers I've ever met, It was a blessing meeting him, Just let him know Miss Hernandez referred you.

  20. Ugh, I use that by AbRASiON · · Score: 1

    To save me re typing some of my longer messages to particular friends. It's going to look bad on my part now