WhatsApp Decodes Spammer’s Logic – Will Label All Forwarded Messages Now!

WhatsApp, world’s largest messenger app with 1.2 billion users all over the globe, will soon target forwarded messages, in their battle against spam.

Although we had given you a hint as to how it will work, now concrete evidence has been gathered, with screenshots.

But before that, let us understand why forwarded messages are being targeted, and what it means for the new order of digital messages.

Forwarded Messages: The Womb Of Spam, Fake Messages!

WhatsApp, in their research, must have figured this out quite early: Majority of spam messages and fake news are forwarded messages, which are simply copied and pasted via single tap, and sent to hundreds of users with a single go.

No doubt, this is most prevalent in India, where 100 crore good morning messages are sent in a day; and on the New Year eve, 20 billion messages were shared, which actually slowed down WhatsApp.

The core reason is the easy user-friendly process to forward any message to your entire friends’ list.

Now, the same is threatening WhatsApp’s existence, as rising spams and fake news messages are threatening to erode their user base.

And WhatsApp needs to do something, fast!

WhatsApp’s Target: Forwarded Messages

Considering that WhatsApp now knows that forwarded messages are the platform via which spams and fake news and malwares are distributed, they will soon launch a new feature, which will tag forwarded message with a new label: ‘Forwarded Message’.

Either that message has been copied from any other chat window, or the same chat window – If that message is forwarded, then it will be labelled.

This is how it will appear:

Now, if that label is found more than 25 times, then that message will be automatically labelled as spam. This has been shared earlier as well.

This was detected by WAbetainfo, which exclusively tracks WhatsApp’s new developments and features.

In their recent blog, they said:

“In this 2.18.30 update, WhatsApp has modified the behavior of the feature (as already announced in the Android 2.18.67 changelog), that will show on the bubble a Forwarded message string, if the message has been forwarded from another chat (or from the same chat)..”

As per some reports, WhatsApp has understood the logic of spammers: A spam or fake message is never shared with a single user; it is always shared with a bulk of users, and this where their check on forwarded messages will actually work.

Do you think such labels will prove to be a hindrance to the usability of the app? Or they are doing the right thing?

Do let us know by commenting right here!