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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)
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.
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.