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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.

5 of 65 comments (clear)

  1. 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, 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.

    2. 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.

  2. 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.

  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.