JAKARTA: Facebook Inc’s WhatsApp is limiting worldwide the number of times a user can forward a message to five, starting on Monday, as the popular messaging service looks to fight “misinformation and rumours”, company executives said on Monday.

Previously, a WhatsApp user could forward a message to 20 individuals or groups. The limit of five is in expansion of a measure WhatsApp put in place in India in July after the spread of rumours on social media led to killings and lynching attempts.

“We’re imposing a limit of five messages all over the world as of today,” Victoria Grand, vice president for policy and communications at WhatsApp, said at an event in the Indonesian capital.

WhatsApp will roll out an update to activate the new forward limit, starting on Monday, WhatsApp’s head of communications Carl Woog told Reuters. Users of devices running Google’s Android system will receive the update first, followed by users of Apple Inc’s iOS.

WhatsApp, which has around 1.5 billion users, has been trying to find ways to stop misuse of the app, following global concern that the platform was being used to spread fake news, manipulated photos, videos without context, and audio hoaxes, with no way to monitor their origin or full reach.

The messaging service became part of the political battleground in Brazil’s presidential election last October, with far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro facing claims of using the app to spread falsehoods related to his main opponent. Bolsonaro, who ended up coasting to victory, has denied the charges.

The messaging app was also used to mobilise support for a massive truckers strike in Brazil during May 2018 that blocked the country’s main roadways for about 10 days and hampered everything from fuel deliveries to gas stations to shipments of commodities at ports.

The app’s end-to-end encryption allows groups of hundreds of users to exchange texts, photos and video beyond the oversight of independent fact checkers or even the platform itself.

Published in Dawn, January 22nd, 2019