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Facebook is adding a forwarding limit on Messenger in an effort to curb the sharing of viral misinformation.
With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic still affecting many parts of the world and the controversial US presidential elections just a few months away, now more than ever is the time to keep an eye on what you are reading on. line. The social media giant Facebook has been repeatedly criticized this year for its use as a platform in disinformation campaigns, in addition to failing to take timely action on users promoting violence or conspiracies.
“We are introducing a forwarding limit on Messenger to help curb the efforts of those seeking to cause chaos, sow uncertainty or inadvertently undermine accurate information,” Facebook said. The Messenger app will now only allow messages to be forwarded to five people or groups at a time.
Social media companies have struggled to stop the spread of misinformation once it goes viral. Often times, dangerous misinformation can spread uncontrollably before platform moderators address it. Adding a forwarding limit will cool down the jets of misinformation that spreads like a virus to many people, but it’s unclear how effective it will actually be in slowing its spread. In addition to enforcing forwarding limits on Messenger, Facebook recently added new privacy controls and said it would stop accepting new political ads a week before the US election in an attempt to prevent the spread of late-breaking misinformation. hour.
