WhatsApp announced today that it is going to begin labeling forwarded messages in one-on-one and group chats on its platform. This is to help other users figure out if the message being sent was written by the person or someone else and forwarded to them. This change is going to help WhatsApp combat fake news, which is becoming a big issue on its platform in India. That shouldn’t be a surprise given that WhatsApp’s biggest market is indeed India. The forwarded message labels will only appear on the latest version of WhatsApp, so you’re going to want to make sure you are running the latest version from Google Play.
Forwarded messages isn’t something that is new for WhatsApp, it has had this feature for quite some time. But strangely enough, there wasn’t any sort of label to indicate whether this message was forwarded or not. Which made it harder to tell if the message was brand new or taken from another chat. For the most part, that’s not an issue, but if you are posting news, it helps to know that it was a forwarded message and not one you wrote. WhatsApp is hoping that this change will help combat fake news and misinformation, which has become a big issue for WhatsApp and other platforms since 2016, when the US Presidential Election took place – and the term “fake news” was coined.
WhatsApp is still urging everyone to think before they forward a message to someone else. This is not only to make sure that you remain safe, but those on your contacts list as well. WhatsApp also reminds everyone that they can block or report someone as spam, and keep their WhatsApp inbox safe and clean as well. These are important features that everyone should be taking advantage of, but not abusing.