Combating Misinformation on WhatsApp: Understanding Two Types of Forwarded Messages
Ali Imran Mohd Noordin
Journalism | Fact Check | Media Literacy | Photo | Author |
Share with me messages that you doubt their authenticity received via WhatsApp today.
By far, WhatsApp is the world's most preferred messenger app. Launched in January 2009 then acquired by Meta (Facebook) in 2014 it has over 2 billion users today.
Generally speaking, in any group chat one person will always forward bogus messages. It is an open secret that the platform has been a choice to distribute misinformation.
Being a fact-check journalist I have to admit that filtering fake news is a tough job.
They come in many ways and may happen with or without the awareness of the sender him/herself.
Thus WhatsApp came out with a solution. It is not bulletproof but workable to help to slow down the spread of rumors, viral messages, and fake news.
Some of you may have seen the 'forwarded' and 'forwarded many times' marks on these messages. But how many of us know the difference between the two?
To understand them, I referred to WhatsApp Help Center.
'Forwarded many times' label refers to a message that have travelled away from original sender more than five times/steps/layers. They are marked with double arrow icon.
In my understanding, this means any message travelled in a lesser number of 'away' is considered as 'forwarded'. They are labelled with single arrow icon.
I drew a simple flow chart to help us picture the situation.
We can see that from the point Imran first sent the message up until it reaches Yoong, WhatsApp system labels it as forwarded.
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At this stage, Lily, Nick, Ramesh and Jenna have the freedom to forward the message to up to five chats including one group chat.
After five 'aways' WhatsApp will identify the message as forwarded many times.
This means that from Santi onwards WhatsApp system will only allow them to forward the message to only one receiver at a time.
I hope this helps us to better understand the two labels in our WhatsApp chats.
Be extra careful when you receive 'forwarded many times' because they are prone to contain misinformation.
Stay safe online.
Ali Imran
Ref:
General Manager, Strategic Communications & Stakeholder Engagement of WCE | Deputy Chairman, Public Relations PRactitioners Society of Malaysia | LinkedIn Top 100 M'sian Biz Leader | ASEAN Digital Literacy Master Trainer
1 年I have always held fast the first salvo leading to a crisis comes from whatsapp especially for what I call the "aunty uncle" group ie families
Admin & Business Support Executive | Part-time English to Malay Translator
1 年Thank you for the information, Ali Imran Mohd Noordin. Just realized I never bothered to check what's the difference between these two. I assume that forwarded many times means so many groups have already received the message. Somehow, I can't easily leave a group just to avoid any people misunderstanding. But it ups to me now to filter which news/story that really genuine. Telling our older generation in the family about the fake things also required a lot of courage ??
Certified English to Malay Translator | [Life Science] [Healthcare] [Medicine] [Pharmaceuticals] | A proud science nerd??????
1 年This is very informative, Ali Imran Mohd Noordin. Totally agree with "Generally speaking, in any group chat, one person will always forward bogus messages," and may I add, there are also some well-meaning people gullible enough to unintentionally perpetuate the problem.