The Facebook subsidiary WhatsApp limits the forwarding of messages for all users to curb false news, the BBC reports, citing Indian media. So far, the restriction to five redirects only in India, now it applies worldwide. In India, it had been implemented in response to lynchings that were triggered by misinformation shared through WhatsApp.
The rule change was announced in Jakarta, according to the BBC. In April, a new president will be elected in Indonesia. So far, each WhatsApp message could be forwarded up to 20 times, a WhatsApp group can have up to 256 members. Now a user can forward a message to up to 1,280 users instead of up to 5,120 previously, the BBC predicted.
Social networks like Facebook have been under criticism for some time because of their role in the propagation of propaganda and false news. Only last week, Facebook announced that it had deleted 500 pages and accounts that are said to have spread falsehoods in Europe and Ukraine.
New rules for political advertising in the EU
In the run-up to the European elections, Facebook also announced last week that it wanted to see more transparency on its political advertising platform in the EU. The rules that already exist in the US, such as the storage in a publicly accessible database for seven years and the mandatory indication of identity and location for clients of political advertising should be introduced before the EU election in May.
Facebook took action in the United States, especially after the US presidential election in 2016, as the online network had been widely used in campaigning for propaganda campaigns. They were controlled by US intelligence from Russia.
