WhatsApp plans to limit message-forwarding in India

21 July 2018:

WhatsApp is mulling to limit message-forwarding in India, a country that has seen the killings of some innocent people in recent months following rumours being circulated through the social media platform.

The company’s move comes in the wake of a formal request made to it by the Central government. In a WhatsApp blog post on Thursday, the company said it would launch a test to limit the forwarding of messages in India to a maximum of five users. The “quick forward” button next to media messages will also be removed.

In the blog, WhatsApp said: “We believe that these changes...which we'll continue to evaluate...will help keep WhatsApp the way it was designed to be: a private messaging app”.

“We are deeply committed to your safety and privacy which is why WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted, and we'll continue to improve our app with features like this one,” it further stated.