Edited by BellaRose Okojie
Personal propaganda, hate speech, fabricated content and fake news all plague the internet today. According to a 2018 research on Twitter, false news or misinformation tends to be more appealing to the ears and spurs readers to action.
The research work showed that social media applications are one of the main sources of fake news, rumours, and misinformation. Once false information reaches social media, it travels like wildfire, consuming the attention of anyone who sees it. Controlling such “wild fires” can be very difficult, but we can take certain steps to prevent its spread.
Certain social media platforms have already taken steps to curb the spread of misinformation by flagging down misleading content. WhatsApp is the most recent social media platform to strengthen its defence against the spread of misinformation on its platform.
How does WhatsApp plan to protect users from misleading information
Spreading of false information on WhatsApp and other social media platforms is easy. A simple retweet, share or forward can take misleading information far beyond country borders.
Forwarding random messages containing information that isn’t proven or from a trusted source can be misleading. This in itself is what WhatsApp aims to bring an end to! With a new update, WhatsApp users will no longer be able to forward an originally forwarded message more than one time.
The continuous forwarding of messages is just a way users spread misinformation without even checking what it contains. A rumour or fake news gets to a person (via WhatsApp), the person forwards it to a group chat, and people in the group chat in turn forward to their contacts and other groups chats. Just like that, such misleading news will reach as many people as possible, making some believe lies. This approach from WhatsApp will also help curb the forwarding of get-rich-quick schemes that aim at milking innocent people of their hard-earned money.
This will also reduce the number of hacked twitter accounts via links people click from a forwarded message from an unknown number. Note to keep your WhatsApp messenger up to date to be able to benefit from this development.
