WhatsApp, the encrypted messaging service owned by Facebook, is barring users from forwarding messages to more than five groups at a time, a limit first imposed after India’s government ordered the firm to block inflammatory messages blamed for a series of lynchings.
The change, which company officials said Monday will help keep the platform focused on “private messaging with close contacts,” comes amid rising global scrutiny of misuse of social media platforms.
In the past three years, Facebook has dramatically expanded its security staff and developed algorithms to more quickly remove misleading posts and hate speech from its platforms, Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said at a conference in Munich, Germany, on Monday.
The company, which has been criticized for failing to prevent inauthentic posts by Russian agents seeking to manipulate American voters before the 2016 presidential election, purchased WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014.
Approximately four years later, India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology blamed “irresponsible and explosive messages” circulated on the service for lynchings that the Times of India newspaper said numbered more than two dozen from May 2017 through July of last year.
The messages whipped up vigilante mobs who attacked strangers based on false claims that were widely shared, according to the BBC.
“While the law and order machinery is taking steps to apprehend the culprits, the abuse of platforms like WhatsApp for repeated circulation of such provocative content” is deeply concerning, the information-technology ministry said in a July statement. “Deep disapproval of such developments has been conveyed to the senior management of WhatsApp and they have been advised that necessary remedial measures should be taken.”
WhatsApp began testing the five-group limit on forwarded messages in India, where users forward more messages and photos than any other country in the world, shortly afterward.
A higher limit was applied globally, then tested for six months before the new cap was set, the company said.
“We’ll continue to listen to user feedback about their experience, and over time, look for new ways of addressing viral content,” a spokesperson said.
