So, fake news will be shared with copy-paste instead of forwarding? This will absolutely deter those rascals who manipulate their platform and multiply user engagement.
It seems like a valid and useful way to slow the rate of propagation of fake news.
Much of the current problem is that fake news spreads faster than moderators can make a decision on it, or journalists can fact-check it. If you can keep it in a "slow burn" phase longer, where it's being forwarded along to a handful of people at a time, it's easier to combat.
It also seems like a valid and useful way to slow the rate of propagation of real news. Real news also spread very fast and faster than moderation.
The point is, this has next to zero selectivity. It just makes the platform hostile to encrypted group messages. My guess would be that (besides PR regarding the Indian stories, which is a social problem, not a technical one) this is about censorship. You can't censor things you can't see. Better stop them from communicating freely.
Facebook has a limited amount of mitigation that they can do because of the nature of WhatsApp. Trying to suppress Fake News is hard when you can't even read the content
This seems like it could only be implemented client-side. It also seems like it would require rapid and frequent updates to the ever-growing blacklist. That in turn would require a way to figure out what hashes needed to be blacklisted, which implies either less-than-ideal cryptography practices or the ability to decrypt messages. Neither is desirable for user privacy.
I have a rule I use in computing: whenever you think you want a blacklist, you probably want a whitelist.
Well these fake viral messages are usually quite temporary so you could expire the cache after some time and if some messages have particularly long “legs” just re-send them to clients after their TTL expires
It's a lot easier to do when the disinformation is presented in the form of memes, quotes on top of scenic backgrounds, and screenshots of text.
Anecdotally, I was in one group and one person announced that they were leaving, so they spent some time saying goodbye. Almost at the same time, someone else forwarded a meme post along the lines of "Sometimes the best way to let go is to tell them to FUCK OFF!"
Well, that was quite funny at the end of it, but still.
The forwarding is effortless and is essentially broadcasting. You don't see the updated conversation from a forwarding screen, so you can't pause to reflect the same way you would if you were typing away a message and seeing the chat flow by. So these messages propagate mindlessly.
To that extent I don't think fake news/disinformation is the real problem. It's virality.
I know from private conversation that is at least the second if not third version of an effort that was extensively tested. I can only assume that the first attempt(s) proved effective.
I know someone who looked into the fake propaganda spread around social networks in Myanmar (WhatsApp is essentially not used there, but Facebook and Viber are the big ones). It turned out it was virtually impossible to trace the origin of messages because most people were copy/pasting messages instead of forwarding them.
Which makes me wonder how much of an impact is actually expected of this. The cynic in me worries that it may be a way for the platform to wash its hands...
Ok given what we've seen from headlines recently, this actually makes sense. My grandma is old and I read older people share fake news more then youngins. My grandma (and older aunts/uncles) are the only people who forward emails. I wouldnt be surprised if lots of fake news articles were forwarded around networks of older folks.
There is a correlation between age and “credulity” (for lack of a better word for ‘likely to share inflammatory fake news’) but it’s not the best proxy.
The question is more: assuming that Facebook/WhatsApp can give its existing members a reasonably accurate score, would you allow certain people to share more? What would you do with new accounts?
Through forwarded messages. The app already supports group messaging, which was already (and remains) a more effective way of communicating with an established group.
So now it can get sent around via a game of literal telephone. I wonder if this will end up creating fake news. Of course, any mistakes can be blamed on the users.
WhatsApp UI is also at fault: they distinctly dont show who the message was forwarded from or the original poster
Telegram does and it saves a lot of questions
I have a partner that forwards other people’s business replies over Whatsapp, and I never know the context especially because I never know whose message he is forwarding
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 64.1 ms ] thread"The forward limit significantly reduced forwarded messages around the world," a spokeswoman added.
I believe this is the original source: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46945642
Much of the current problem is that fake news spreads faster than moderators can make a decision on it, or journalists can fact-check it. If you can keep it in a "slow burn" phase longer, where it's being forwarded along to a handful of people at a time, it's easier to combat.
The point is, this has next to zero selectivity. It just makes the platform hostile to encrypted group messages. My guess would be that (besides PR regarding the Indian stories, which is a social problem, not a technical one) this is about censorship. You can't censor things you can't see. Better stop them from communicating freely.
This seems like it could only be implemented client-side. It also seems like it would require rapid and frequent updates to the ever-growing blacklist. That in turn would require a way to figure out what hashes needed to be blacklisted, which implies either less-than-ideal cryptography practices or the ability to decrypt messages. Neither is desirable for user privacy.
I have a rule I use in computing: whenever you think you want a blacklist, you probably want a whitelist.
Anecdotally, I was in one group and one person announced that they were leaving, so they spent some time saying goodbye. Almost at the same time, someone else forwarded a meme post along the lines of "Sometimes the best way to let go is to tell them to FUCK OFF!"
Well, that was quite funny at the end of it, but still.
The forwarding is effortless and is essentially broadcasting. You don't see the updated conversation from a forwarding screen, so you can't pause to reflect the same way you would if you were typing away a message and seeing the chat flow by. So these messages propagate mindlessly.
To that extent I don't think fake news/disinformation is the real problem. It's virality.
The question is more: assuming that Facebook/WhatsApp can give its existing members a reasonably accurate score, would you allow certain people to share more? What would you do with new accounts?
Edit - I removed a paragraph which was conjecture
Telegram does and it saves a lot of questions
I have a partner that forwards other people’s business replies over Whatsapp, and I never know the context especially because I never know whose message he is forwarding