WhatsApp allows to check fake news

Since the coronavirus crisis began, the applications that allow us to continue connecting with our loved ones have become something, even more, essential and that is the case of WhatsApp, which already has nothing less than two billion users, according to data offered by the application itself.
For this reason, with so many active users, the platform still has a greater responsibility to deal with fake news and therefore it has taken different measures.

Control in messages

The news about WhastApp and the intention to control poor quality information is very important for users and for that it is relevant to know the measures that will be taken. One decision the company made is to limit the forwarding of a message, especially if it has already been forwarded previously. The popular mobile messaging service has done so because they believe that the forwarded tag itself serves to help identify whether the information received has been created by a contact of yours or someone outside and responds to a chain of messages.
In the event that a message has been sent to a user more than five times it will be indicated with a double arrow icon.
In this way, when it is indicated with said double tab and it can be seen clearly at the top, we will see that if we try to forward it to our contacts, a message will appear that will tell us that we will not be able to do it because it will have been forwarded many times and that cannot be shared with more chats at the same time.
With these measures, what WhatsApp does is force users that whenever they want to make some type of forwarding, they must go contact to contact, and for this, click on the message, go to the forwarding button in the area higher. It seems that this measure is already giving its effect since they have reduced 25% in the forwarding of messages.

The magnifying glass to search for fakes news on WhatsApp

There is another way to detect that we are facing a fake news on WhastApp. From the application you will be able to detect those messages that have a high rate of forwarding, as they are indicated with a double arrow, as we say, and it also has a magnifying glass that can be pressed and in which the message will appear: "Would you like to Search this on the Internet? The message will be uploaded to Google to perform the search." In messages of this type you can see that they do not have the option of fast forwarding
In this way, pressing will open the web browser in order to check its veracity, a functionality that is only available in text mode but will come to WhatsApp Web in the future.
So if the user receives a message that contains a false news or a headline that is manipulated, with the internet search they will go to an article that denies that hoax and a note that tells the information in a better way.
However, this measure is not perfect because if instead of forwarding the message you choose to copy the text and paste it in other chats, there will be no limitation or this double date will appear.

A necessary fight

The news about controlling fakes news on WhastApp, today, is more necessary than ever. At a time when sending false news grew by up to 25%, it seemed more and more necessary to resort to a tool that would end these massive shipments and the spread and propagation of hoaxes. But this is not the only measure that WhatsApp has implemented in recent days and, has accelerated due to the coronavirus, it has also done the same with the launch of new stickers, in collaboration with the World Health Organization, and with the expansion of the number of users that can be present in a group video call.

Through these changes and WhatsApp news, the application seeks to be more secure and competitive compared to other competitors that already had more complete functions than what the popular instant messaging application offered until today.