New Delhi: Taking cognisance of the Indian government’s concerns over the misuse of its platform for repeated circulation of provocative content, Facebook-owned WhatsApp Wednesday said it has planned a number of features in India to curb the menace.
WhatsApp, which has over 200 million monthly active users in India, listed a number of measures it has taken in the recent past to control the spread of misinformation and abuse on its platform. The company wrote to the IT ministry saying the company is “horrified” by terrible acts of violence.
“We have been testing a new label in India that highlights when a message has been forwarded versus composed by the sender. This could serve as an important signal for recipients to think twice before forwarding messages because it lets a user know if content they received was written by the person they know or a potential rumor from someone else. We plan to launch this new feature soon,” the company said.
Reacting to the growing instances of mob killings of innocent people owing to large number of irresponsible messages filled with rumours and provocation circulated on WhatsApp, the IT ministry Tuesday asked WhatsApp to take immediate action and ensure that the platform is not used for such malafide activities.
“Thank you for your letter dated July 2. Like the Government of India, we’re horrified by these terrible acts of violence and wanted to respond quickly to the very important issues you have raised. We believe this is a challenge that requires government, civil society and technology companies to work together,” WhatsApp said in its letter.
According to media reports, over 30 people have been killed in the past one year by mobs after rumours of child lifting triggered via messages on WhatsApp.
In mid-May, said WhatsApp, it added new protections to prevent people from adding others back into groups which they had left — a form of misuse we think it is important to correct. “Last week, we launched a new setting that enables administrators to decide who gets to send messages within individual groups. This will help reduce the spread of unwanted messages into important group conversations – as well as the forwarding of hoaxes and other content,” the popular messaging platform noted.
WhatsApp has also announced a new project to work with leading academic experts in India to learn more about the spread of misinformation. The company also announced to soon start an engagement programme with the law enforcement officials across the country so “they are familiar with our approach and how we can be helpful”.
Systemic Harassment
The growing tendency of different state police forces to cross jurisdictional boundaries in order to arrest individuals for their opinions...
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