Attention lovers of family chat news updates: WhatsApp announced yesterday at an event in Jakarta that their service would be limiting the amount of forwards allowed to five individuals or groups in their bid to fight the spreading of misinformation.
Not a moment too soon for some: Today, the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development had to clarify that they did not issue any order pertaining to a curfew of teenagers below 18 years of age.
Asking the public to be more cautious when spreading “news,” they uploaded a screencap of the fake news story that alleged that teens below 18 were to not be outside their homes after 10pm, starting tonight.
Notis penting #semakdahulusebelumsebar pic.twitter.com/sJgS543Pqk
— KPWKM (@KPWKM) January 21, 2019
Commenting at the event, WhatsApp’s vice president of policy and communications, Victoria Grand, confirmed the move — aligning themselves with a similar roll-out in India last year. Globally, users had been able to forward messages to up to 20 recipients, but now it will be brought back down to five.
At the time of the decision to limit the amount of forwards in India, WhatsApp said it would “help keep WhatsApp the way it was designed to be: A private messaging app.”
Speaking to The Guardian yesterday, Carl Woog, head of communications at WhatsApp, explained: “We settled on five because we believe this is a reasonable number to reach close friends while helping prevent abuse.”
After a spate of mob lynchings in India some say occurred through false information being spread through the messaging service, WhatsApp began to highlight messages with a “forwarded” not in light grey. Many believe it is not enough, and that the original sender of the message should be identified, and held accountable.
