WhatsApp to limit message forwarding to 5 chats in India; Check top recent updates

This comes after the government served Facebook-owned platform with a second notice asking it to check the spread of fake and provocative content.

WhatsApp has said that it is launching a test to limit message forwarding to five chats. (PTI)

WhatsApp has said that it is launching a test to limit message forwarding to five chats. The new update will be applied to the users in India. This new update will enable India’s 250 million WhatsApp users to forward a message to only five people in one go. Whatsapp is also expected to remove the quick forward button next to media messages. This comes after the government served Facebook-owned platform with a second notice asking it to check the spread of fake and provocative content. WhatsApp in a blog post on Thursday said, "Today, we're launching a test to limit forwarding that will apply to everyone using WhatsApp. In India - where people forward more messages, photos, and videos than any other country in the world - we'll also test a lower limit of 5 chats at once and we'll remove the quick forward button next to media messages." "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," WhatsApp added. Watch Video- Besides limiting the message forwarding, Whatsapp had earlier announced some new measure to curb the spread of false news and rumours of horrifying incidents. Here take a look at other new updates that were recently launched. Labelling Forwarded Messages Launching a new feature on July 10, the messaging app had announced that the user will now get an indication about the messages that were forwarded to them. This was to determine if the sender wrote it or was it just a forwarded message from others. "WhatsApp will indicate which messages you receive have been forwarded to you. This extra context will help make one-on-one and group chats easier to follow. It also helps you determine if your friend or relative wrote the message they sent or if it originally came from someone else," WhatsApp had said in a statement. New Group Setting for Admins In an initiative to improve the group’s experience, the messaging app had last month introduced a new setting for the admins. WhatsApp had said, "Today, we're launching a new group setting where only admins are able to send messages to a group. One way people use groups is to receive important announcements and information, including parents and teachers at schools, community centers, and non-profit organizations. We've introduced this new setting so admins can have better tools for these use cases." New Features for Groups WhatsApp had lately divided group messages into four categories- Group description, Admin controls, Group catch up and Participant search. The messaging app have also introduced protection so that users can’t be repeatedly added to groups they’ve left.