The instant messaging service, now owned by Facebook, had recently started testing a suspicious link detection feature on Android.
WhatsApp seems hard at work trying to bring more and more safety and security features alongside its efforts to seemingly limit the spread of fake news and misinformation — especially in India — on the platform. The instant messaging service, now owned by Facebook, had recently started testing a suspicious link detection feature on Android. The feature was however limited to a very small number of beta testers. Now, WhatsApp has come up and rolled it out for all beta users through update version 2.18.221. This means if you’re on WhatsApp beta and you’re using the latest build, the instant messaging service can help you in staying cautious of spam, spoof and phishing links, you might get in your chats.
Once updated to build version 2.18.221, WhatsApp beta users on Android will apparently be warned by the service before opening a suspicious link. Also, it would warn them once again by searching for unusual characters when they try to open the suspicious link. The suspicious link/character will be highlighted in red, and users will get two options, either to open the link or go back. The feature is available only for Android for now and is expected to come to iOS later.
„This indicator may appear when a link contains a combination of characters that is considered unusual. Spammers may use these character combinations to trick you into tapping on links that appear to go to a legitimate website, but actually take you to a malicious site,“ according to WhatsApp.
The links are said to be checked automatically. WhatsApp adds that it does not have access to the message data due to end-to-end encryption.
WhatsApp, as mentioned earlier, is actively working to curb the spread if such malicious links, the spreading of which has become part and parcel of the messaging service. The same is true about spreading of fake news and misinformation.
In order to curb the spread of fake news, or at least place a speed-breaker to slow down the process, WhatsApp has announced that it is now limiting the number of chats where a message can be forwarded at a time to 5 in India. Globally, the limit is 20 chat. Because of the new limit, a message cannot be forwarded to more than 5 people in your contacts list at a time. Moreover, WhatsApp is also removing the quick forward button from the app to further minimise the spread of fake news.
„We’re launching a test to limit forwarding that will apply to everyone using WhatsApp. In India — where people forward more messages, photos, and videos than any other country in the world — we’ll also test a lower limit of 5 chats at once and we’ll remove the quick forward button next to media messages. We believe that these changes — which we’ll continue to evaluate – will help keep WhatsApp the way it was designed to be: a private messaging app,“ the company recently announced in a blog post.
