You will now be able to see how many times a message was forwarded on WhatsApp.
The most widely used messaging app WhatsApp has been struggling to restrict fake news going viral across its platform for the past few years. Since last year WhatsApp has started labeling ‘forwarded’ messages to prevent misinformation within the platform. With incidents of violence reported in various countries such as India owing to forwarded fake news on WhatsApp, the social media giant had pledged to design features to tackle these issues.
Meanwhile, WhatsApp forwards for each message was limited to five recipients in an update for users worldwide last year. Previously, a WhatsApp user could forward a message to 20 individuals or groups.
Well, in a recent development, WhatsApp users will now be able to see how many times a message was forwarded after they send it. Moreover, a new forward icon on the message itself will denote if the message was forwarded more than five times since the first instance.
Here’s how the new update works. Previously, two lines of information about a selected message were available which can be seen by pressing the information icon i.e. “Seen” and “Delivered”. However, now users can see a new line of information about the selected message such as “Forwarded 4 time”.
Additionally, the new option to see how many times your WhatsApp message was forwarded works for all messages, including texts, images, videos, and voice notes. The update has been rolled out globally and will be available to all users very soon.
It is also worth mentioning here that only the most recent person who forwarded the message can see how many times the message was forwarded before them. However, once a message has been forwarded more than five times, it can be deduced from the icon on the message whether it was forwarded multiple times or not.
Meanwhile, WhatsApp recently added a security feature in its beta version, where a user can use fingerprint authentication option to maximize privacy. And now to curb fake news on its platform, WhatsApp will allow group admins to restrict ‘Frequently Forwarded’ messages. WhatsApp has recently released a beta version 2.19.97 and tracker WABetaInfo has spotted the company working to restrict users sending frequently forwarded messages to the group chats.
