WhatsApp restricts forwards at one go
With more than 200 million users, India is WhatsApp's biggest market.
New Delhi: Under pressure from government to take steps to prevent spreading of rumours, WhatsApp on Friday announced that its users in India would be able to forward messages to only five chats at once. The company said it will also remove the quick forward button next to media messages.
“Today, we’re launching a test to limit forwarding on WhatsApp. In India - where people forward more messages, photos, and videos, than any other country in the world — we’ll also test a lower limit of 5 chats at once and we’ll remove the quick forward button next to media messages,” said the company in a blog. Currently, WhatsApp lets its subscribers to forward a message to multiple chats at once.
With more than 200 million users, India is WhatsApp’s biggest market. “We believe that these changes - which we’ll continue to evaluate — will help keep WhatsApp the way it was designed to be: a private messaging app,” it said.
The company’s announcement came after a spate of mob lynchings in the country were linked to messages that circulated on Whatsapp groups. Centre which had already this month demanded that WhatsApp rein in misuse, had said that it wanted more effective measures to ensure accountability and ease law enforcement.