On Tuesday, April 7, WhatsApp announced it would place new limits on the forwarding of messages identified as “highly forwarded” i.e. sent by a chain of five or more people. These messages can now only be forwarded to a single person. In fact, on its own blog, WhatsApp argued that: “Last year we introduced users to the concept of messages that have been forwarded many times. These messages are labelled with double arrows to indicate they did not originate from a close contact. In effect, these messages are less personal compared to typical messages sent on WhatsApp. We are now introducing a limit so that these messages can only be forwarded to one chat at a time.”
Why this limitation? The explanation lies in the same post: “As a private messaging service, we’ve taken several steps over the years to help keep conversations intimate. For example, we previously set limits on forwarded messages to constrain virality. At the time, we saw a 25% decrease in total message forwards globally.”
This restriction could be justified, on one hand, as a measure to stem the spread of fake news during a global health emergency. On the other, it could be also viewed as yet another disfiguring transformation of the original practice of social media. One could object that WhatsApp is not an example of social media; however, as the Company itself underlines, its socio-public function is undeniable. In the recent weeks of pandemic, people have also used the messaging service to organize public moments of support to health care workers curing those infected by the COVID19 virus.
