Thanks to technology nothing seems easier than forwarding already drafted messages to other contacts. Well, a lot of people would agree on this as it literally saves a lot of our time. But sadly, message forwarding has been capped by the most popular chat platform, WhatsApp to one-contact-at-a-time & it hurts.
I know it’s convenient to just copy-paste messages to other contacts, but forwarding messages is much more convenient. The feature is quite beneficial when you want to share any info to a lot of people in a limited time period. However, the same can be used to spread misconceptions as well as rumors.
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WhatsApp Caps Forwarding Messages Feature
The social media platform has decided to put capping on forwarding messages feature recently. Initially, the feature wasn’t available at all and later on, it had been capped to 5 contacts at a time. And now, the giant has opted to control the feature to one contact at a time.
The company is all set to impose the latest restrictions on how often you can share the messages on WhatsApp platform. The initiative has been taken to put down the misinformation as much as possible. If people won’t be able to forward the messages they received, there will be lesser-misconception-floating-messages around the world related to the COVID-19 outbreak. Used by more than 2 billion people all over the world, WhatsApp has planned to activate the service (one at a time) from today only.
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What Company Thinks About The New Initiative?
This one-at-a-time feature from WhatsApp is something that’s been started with a long term outcome. Trying to minimize the probability of spreading misconceptions as much as possible, WhatsApp wrote on a blog yesterday:
Is all forwarding bad? Certainly not! We know many users forward helpful information, as well as funny videos, memes, and reflections or prayers they find meaningful. In recent weeks, people have also used WhatsApp to organize public moments of support for frontline health workers. However, we’ve seen a significant increase in the amount of forwarding which users have told us can feel overwhelming and can contribute to the spread of misinformation. We believe it’s important to slow the spread of these messages down to keep WhatsApp a place for personal conversation.
In addition to this change, we are working directly with NGOs and governments, including the World Health Organization and over 20 national health ministries, to help connect people with accurate information. Together these trusted authorities have sent hundreds of millions of messages directly to people requesting information and advice. You can learn more about these efforts, as well as how to submit potential myths, hoaxes and rumors to fact checking organizations, on our Coronavirus Information Hub.
While trying to justify the action, WhatsApp has talked about helping other entities to provide the public accurate information. There will be users who might not be okay with the feature & that’s okay. Because, the company is not trying to please anybody here. The disastrous Novel Coronavirus situation is much more than trying to think what will please my users.
The company also said, “We believe that now more than ever people need to be able to connect privately. Our teams are hard at work to keep WhatsApp running reliably during this unprecedented global crisis. We’ll continue to listen to your feedback and improve ways for people to share with each other on WhatsApp.”
Also Read: how WhatsApp can help you stay connected during the COVID-19 outbreak?
In order to limit spam & disinformation, WhatsApp initiated this cap. Similarly, YouTube reassessed the monetization policy to limit the authorized accurate COVID-19 info channels.
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