This is why WhatsApp doesn't let you forward a message to several people

What was given is over. How many times have you told your brother-in-law, in the WhatsApp group, to stop sending hoaxes? That it is useless. That they are nothing more than hoaxes invented by someone to hurt everyone or, in the worst case, encourage scams. But he nothing. Like a good brother-in-law: erre erre hitting the forward button.

Well then, for great evils, great remedies. WhatsApp has decided to cut it off,so it is possible that in the last few hours some have had problems forwarding messages of this type.Hoaxes, chains and other junk publications that did nothing more than fill WhatsApp groups with false, absurd and ridiculous information.

But what is happening? What is the decision that WhatsApp has made? Starting this week, all messages that have been identified as heavily forwarded (that is, sent in chains of five or more people) can only be forwarded to one person. In this way, any piece of news that could be a hoax will have a much slower propagation rate

I can't forward WhatsApp messages anymore, what's wrong?

If you are the compulsive forwarder of messages instead of your brother-in-law, you may have noticed that many of the things you are trying to share can no longer reach more than five people at a time.The new goal that WhatsApp has set for itself is to reduce the speed at which until now the hoaxes, chains and other unproductive and harmful messages that were circulating by this type of platform.

And it is that in the era of fake news and even more so now that we find ourselves in this situation of he alth crisis, let it be so easy to spread hoaxes is not good for anyone.

As explained by those responsible for WhatsApp, in recent weeks they have seen how the number of forwarded messages has increased considerably. In fact, they recognize that many users are sharing useful information, also funny videos, memes, reflections or prayers,with the aim of alleviating the situation we are experiencing throughout the world because of the coronavirus.

However, they believe that this huge amount of messages may contribute to the spread of misinformation, which is difficult to control.They also believe that this massive forwarding of messages can be overwhelming for many users. Hence, they are trying to restrict mass forwarding, with the aim of continuing to preserve the space that WhatsApp is as a place for exchanging personal conversations.

WhatsApp: when it was easy to share with hundreds of people

Did you know that when WhatsApp was launched, users could share messages with up to 256 people? This was the number limit. But this fact and the end-to-end encryption that WhatsApp has offered for a long time directly prevented the authorities from inquiring about the authorship of certain messages. Messages that should be considered crimes.

The limitation on the dissemination of messages has been tested by WhatsApp since 2018. So much so that for some time now it was only possible to forward to a maximum of five people.

And while no one will be able to prevent from forwarding fake news, from now on it can only be done from person to person. So the bombardment will be, at least, more limited. As WhatsApp explained, with the restrictions made in the last year, the sending of fraudulent messages has been reduced by up to 25%.