4 ms·

WhatsApp limits message forwarding in bid to tackle spread of misinformation

13 points by colinprince 8y ago

soziawa 8y ago
How is that supposed to help with anything? It'll just take a bit longer to forward a message to all your friends, that's all.
- omaranto 8y ago
  Adding a bit of friction reduces the number of people motivated enough to overcome it.
  - soziawa 8y ago
    We're talking about people willing to kill. It seems obvious to me that these are the kind of people that are motivated enough to tap on their phone 10 more times.
    - mathnmusic 8y ago
      People willing to kill is a small subset of people willing to forward rumors. Deliberate friction can indeed be useful.
    - isolli 8y ago
      Only a minority are willing to kill. The rest just lazily contribute to spreading false rumors. If you stop the lazy ones, you may stop the rumor from going viral and reaching the killers.
  - mathnmusic 8y ago
    This change makes both fake news and true news hard to spread.
- arunitc 8y ago
  Of course it doesn't help. Just shows local governments that they are trying all they can to stop spread of fake news
- weavie 8y ago
  I think this article may provide some context : https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pranavdixit/whatsapp-destroyed-village-lynchings-rainpada-india https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pranavdixit/whatsapp-de...
  - rataata_jr 8y ago
    Buzzfeed! My reliable new source.
0xcafecafe 8y ago
Still doesn't help in the case when you are a member of groups with a lot of people. They should limit it as one group or 5 individuals. It is restrictive but I consider most forwards as spam as it is.
jermaustin1 8y ago
Why do they support forwarding anyway? Has there ever been a useful mass foward on a social media platform?
- gruez 8y ago
  more shares/forwards = more "engagement"
- mathnmusic 8y ago
  What do we do when rumors need to be quickly corrected?
  - DougN7 8y ago
    Or when some other imporant true news (natural disaster?) needs to be forwarded?
- skrebbel 8y ago
  Because it's a useful feature. Don't forget that WhatsApp isn't designed much as a social media platform as a utility. I use it all the time. For example, some parent from school sends me a message if their kid can play with my son tomorrow. I forward it to my wife so that she's in the loop. Super handy. My sister sends me a nice photo of my kids. I forward it to the in-laws' family group (who live far away). They love getting pictures of their grandchildren. Super handy. I suspect that it's stuff like this that the feature was designed for. I think it's hard for UX designers to imagine that there are millions of people who will believe anything they're sent and who will forward it to everybody. And that it's somehow the app's fault if people do it. I mean, I'm no big fan of Facebook Inc, but where were the outraged news paper articles when people forwarded extremist nonsense, scams and viruses to their entire email contact list? Why didn't they demand action from, eh, whoever designed SMTP, immediately? WhatsApp has no fancy engagement-maximizing algorithms that we can get angry at. It's really just texting with groups and mixed media. Forward something to 100 people, 100 phones are going to buzz. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand that people in the US don't use WhatsApp because texting is free. Do people in America get angry at telcos when people send violence inducing bullshit text messages to each other?
aboutruby 8y ago
May help with general spam. I think regulating groups would be a much better idea: Possible limit of messages per day/hour/minute Possible limit to certain members as "viewers"/"spectators"-only Possible threading (otherwise responses about a certain information are just buried / mixed)
sschueller 8y ago
"I am sorry but the message you are trying to send has been deemed a violation of our ToS and can not be sent."
- Tsubasachan 8y ago
  Yeah I don't think people realize that this is also a form of censorship. I am sure countries like Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia will be pleased. Also wary of making companies responsible for solving social issues.
sctb 8y ago
Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18962992 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18962992.
j16sdiz 8y ago
Meanwhile, Facebook, WhatsApp's parent company, happily spreading crypto currency scam with their ad network

13 points by colinprince 8y ago

How is that supposed to help with anything? It'll just take a bit longer to forward a message to all your friends, that's all.

omaranto 8y ago
Adding a bit of friction reduces the number of people motivated enough to overcome it.
- soziawa 8y ago
  We're talking about people willing to kill. It seems obvious to me that these are the kind of people that are motivated enough to tap on their phone 10 more times.
  - mathnmusic 8y ago
    People willing to kill is a small subset of people willing to forward rumors. Deliberate friction can indeed be useful.
  - isolli 8y ago
    Only a minority are willing to kill. The rest just lazily contribute to spreading false rumors. If you stop the lazy ones, you may stop the rumor from going viral and reaching the killers.
- mathnmusic 8y ago
  This change makes both fake news and true news hard to spread.
arunitc 8y ago
Of course it doesn't help. Just shows local governments that they are trying all they can to stop spread of fake news
weavie 8y ago
I think this article may provide some context : https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pranavdixit/whatsapp-destroyed-village-lynchings-rainpada-india https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pranavdixit/whatsapp-de...
- rataata_jr 8y ago
  Buzzfeed! My reliable new source.

0xcafecafe 8y ago

Still doesn't help in the case when you are a member of groups with a lot of people. They should limit it as one group or 5 individuals. It is restrictive but I consider most forwards as spam as it is.

jermaustin1 8y ago

Why do they support forwarding anyway? Has there ever been a useful mass foward on a social media platform?

gruez 8y ago
more shares/forwards = more "engagement"
mathnmusic 8y ago
What do we do when rumors need to be quickly corrected?
- DougN7 8y ago
  Or when some other imporant true news (natural disaster?) needs to be forwarded?
skrebbel 8y ago
Because it's a useful feature. Don't forget that WhatsApp isn't designed much as a social media platform as a utility. I use it all the time. For example, some parent from school sends me a message if their kid can play with my son tomorrow. I forward it to my wife so that she's in the loop. Super handy. My sister sends me a nice photo of my kids. I forward it to the in-laws' family group (who live far away). They love getting pictures of their grandchildren. Super handy. I suspect that it's stuff like this that the feature was designed for. I think it's hard for UX designers to imagine that there are millions of people who will believe anything they're sent and who will forward it to everybody. And that it's somehow the app's fault if people do it. I mean, I'm no big fan of Facebook Inc, but where were the outraged news paper articles when people forwarded extremist nonsense, scams and viruses to their entire email contact list? Why didn't they demand action from, eh, whoever designed SMTP, immediately? WhatsApp has no fancy engagement-maximizing algorithms that we can get angry at. It's really just texting with groups and mixed media. Forward something to 100 people, 100 phones are going to buzz. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand that people in the US don't use WhatsApp because texting is free. Do people in America get angry at telcos when people send violence inducing bullshit text messages to each other?

aboutruby 8y ago

May help with general spam. I think regulating groups would be a much better idea: Possible limit of messages per day/hour/minute Possible limit to certain members as "viewers"/"spectators"-only Possible threading (otherwise responses about a certain information are just buried / mixed)

sschueller 8y ago

"I am sorry but the message you are trying to send has been deemed a violation of our ToS and can not be sent."

Tsubasachan 8y ago
Yeah I don't think people realize that this is also a form of censorship. I am sure countries like Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia will be pleased. Also wary of making companies responsible for solving social issues.

sctb 8y ago

Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18962992 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18962992.

j16sdiz 8y ago

Meanwhile, Facebook, WhatsApp's parent company, happily spreading crypto currency scam with their ad network