April 08, 2020

Anna Murray 

On April 7th, the Facebook-owned messaging service, WhatsApp, declared that they would put a limit on the number of times in forwarding a message to other chats, to cease the quick spread of coronavirus-related misinformation on its platform.

    
In addition to limiting messaging to five chats at most per forward, which is a measure published last year, WhatsApp will impose the limit that message can only be forwarded to one chat at a single time. Although these limitations will not stop the distribution of misinformation, they can slow down the pace messages being shared and make it more difficult for users to contact all their friends at once.

Through working with governments and NGOs, such as World Health Organization and more than 20 national health ministries, WhatsApp introduced a coronavirus chatbot last month to give users entry to the latest information from World Health Organization, assisting its users to get the accurate information.

Photo:Webshot.