Stop the Spread of False Information by Accepting the WhatsApp Policy
Convincing your friends and loved ones to stop spreading nonsense on the Internet seems like a Sisyphean task – one that you probably gave up years ago, thanks to a particular political tense moment that set us all on the path of social hell. Nowadays, I think it’s important to consider the following: ” What would WhatsApp do?”
You read that right. What will WhatsApp do? I don’t think the popular chat app will be the next Miss Manners on the Internet, but I love the new rules it implements for annoying happiness emails , popular and frequently forwarded messages. They should be the rules by which we all live, period; not only on WhatsApp.
As WhatsApp explains :
“Last year we introduced users to the concept of messages that have been forwarded many times. These messages are marked with double arrows to indicate that they are not coming from close contact. Basically, these messages are less personal than typical messages sent via WhatsApp. We are now introducing a restriction so that these messages can only be forwarded to one chat at a time. “
In other words, if a message has already been forwarded five or more times on WhatsApp, you can now only transfer it to one contact at a time. For this, all I can say is ” ? blessed.”
I highly recommend that you find a way to use this rule in conversations with your conspiracy-loving friends and family. Wouldn’t it be great if, after receiving a forwarded message, the inbox frequenter you know and love shared it with only one person? This method smoothes the exchange curve – unfortunately, it does not kill the virus with a drug, but reduces its ability to spread.
I love WhatsApp’s phrase about this process: limiting virality. And while even the company admits that bulk uploading can be beneficial – sharing cute content with animals, organizing people around an event, or providing support – I’m sure 98 percent of what I get in my personal inbox starts with “FW:” is rubbish. (If you want to cheer me up with a cute little animal, just omit the photo or link in the tweet.)
In addition, the WhatsApp implementation does not stop people from sending bulk messages when the need arises. It only helps to limit people from forwarding things that are probably not important. A person can always take a forwarded message, rephrase it, and send it together, rather than as a new thread, while it is not ideal for preventing spam, at least said the person is contributing some original thoughts as part of the process … Or, if they are really desperate, they can take the original forwarded message they received and forward it to people or groups one by one.
Technical issues aside, will you be able to silence forwarding email in your life? Hard to say. People love to send junk, hoaxes, misinterpreted science, nonsense masquerading as science, and political disinformation. But if you can convince just one of your contacts not to forward messages to their entire contact list, you will be of immeasurable benefit to yourself – and to the world. It never hurts to try. You can even start by forwarding this article if you like.