TIL Desk/Business/New Delhi/ Taking cognisance of the misuse of its platform for repeated circulation of provocative content, Facebook-owned WhatsApp on Tuesday rolled out “Forwarded” label to its 1.5 million monthly active users globally, including over 200 millions in India. The feature will indicate which messages you receive have been forwarded to you in the group or individually.
WhatsApp was pulled up by the Indian government on July 3 and directed to take immediate action in the light of growing instances of lynching of innocent people owing to irresponsible messages filled with rumours and provocation circulated on its platform.
In its reply to the IT Ministry the next day, WhatsApp said it has been testing a new label in India that highlights when a message has been forwarded versus composed by the sender. While announcing the new feature on Tuesday, WhatsApp said this extra context will help make one-on-one and group chats easier to follow.
“It also helps you determine if your friend or relative wrote the message they sent or if it originally came from someone else,” WhatsApp said in a statement. To see this new forwarded label, the users need to have the latest supported version of WhatsApp on their phones.
