Fake news and rumors spread like a wildfire on the internet. It is very important for different social media platforms to have proper forwarding channels to keep a check if any news is fake or true. In its latest effort to fight off the fake rumors take on the internet, Facebook-owned Messaging platform Whatsapp recently received a new feature. Whatsapp’s new feature makes it easy for users to track if a message they receive has been forwarded many times.
“We have recently introduced an update to our forwarded message label that helps people identify when they have received messages that were previously forwarded several times, such as a chain message. These highly forwarded messages will be marked with a double arrow icon and users will receive a notification when they are forwarding such a message,” said WhatsApp spokesperson.
How the new feature works:
Earlier, whenever a user used to get any forwarded message, it was denoted with a single arrow tick to indicate that it was a forwarded message. But now, with this new feature, whenever a user will receive any message that has been forwarded among users more than five times, including chain messages, it will be marked with a double-arrow icon.
Moreover, from now on, if any user tries forwarding a message that has been already forwarded many times by other fellow Whatsapp users, Whatsapp’s new feature will mark it as “forwarded many times” before it is sent out.
However, we aren’t sure if the feature is rolling out yet or not but while being tested in the beta phase, reports were coming in stating that the feature will be expanded to the group chats. Admin of the group will be handed with the power to enable or disable messages labeled as ‘Frequently Forwarded’ to be shared. As of now, we can just wait and see once the feature rolls out on widescale, how helpful it proves to be in curbing the spread of fake news.