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By Newley Purnell 

Facebook Inc.'s WhatsApp is limiting users' ability to forward content on its encrypted messaging platform, as misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic proliferates on the service in its biggest market, India.

In one of the biggest changes WhatsApp has made to a core feature, the company said Tuesday that its more than two billion users globally can now send along frequently forwarded messages they receive to only one person or group at a time, down from five.

In recent weeks the company has "seen a significant increase in the amount of forwarding which users have told us can feel overwhelming and can contribute to the spread of misinformation," the company said.

WhatsApp is also testing a new feature that enables users to click an icon next to frequently forwarded messages--those forwarded at least five times--to search the web for their contents and verify them before sending the message to others, a WhatsApp spokeswoman said.

World-wide, Facebook, Twitter Inc. and YouTube, owned by Alphabet Inc.'s Google, have been battling misinformation related to the coronavirus on their platforms. The European Union is reviving an alliance formed last year with U.S. tech companies to fight online political disinformation, now focusing on false information about the coronavirus.

While those platforms moderate content users post and can eliminate problematic material, all WhatsApp messages are encrypted. That helps turbocharge the spread of messages on WhatsApp, analysts say, since they can't be traced to their original senders.

Though WhatsApp's new measures apply globally and misinformation is passed on everywhere, the problem is particularly acute in developing countries such as India, its biggest market by users, with 400 million.

Infections in India have jumped in recent days, with more than 4,700 confirmed cases of Covid-19, the disease caused by the new virus, and more than 130 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Though the number is relatively small given the country's population of 1.3 billion, the uptick prompted Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 24 to impose a nationwide lockdown for three weeks.

That has sent many people indoors, where they are ramping up their use of WhatsApp. They are blasting out messages, many well intentioned but misguided, fueled by concerns about their health and that of friends and family members. Independent fact-checking groups and government officials say many of the messages contain falsehoods.

"It's going through the roof," said Tarun Pathak, a New Delhi-based technology analyst with research firm Counterpoint. "I am receiving at least five fake messages every three hours."

One concern is limited digital literacy among many in India. Hundreds of millions have gotten online for the first time in recent years as mobile-data prices have plummeted.

Among the messages on WhatsApp that have circulated in India in recent weeks, according to fact-checking groups, is a claim that a treatment has been developed that cures Covid-19 within three hours. Others say a disinfectant will be sprayed in cities at night to kill the virus and that NASA satellite images show the coronavirus has been abating in India. All were identified by fact checkers as false.

India's Press Information Bureau last week debunked a popular WhatsApp forward claiming the country's financial year would be extended by three months because of the coronavirus. The bureau also said one widely circulating WhatsApp message, apparently designed to stop bogus WhatsApp forwards about the coronavirus by claiming the government had declared such messages a "punishable offense," was itself false.

Dubious messages have flourished on the service in recent years, some leading to mob violence in India, and WhatsApp has made earlier tweaks to try to stem the flow. In 2019 it trimmed to five the number of individuals or groups users could forward messages to, down from 20.

WhatsApp partnered with the World Health Organization and the government of India last month to enable users to sign up to receive verified coronavirus information from those groups through the service. WhatsApp has also launched a page on its website about the coronavirus, in partnership with groups such as the WHO and Unicef.

WhatsApp also announced last month a $1 million grant to the International Fact-Checking Network, part of the nonprofit Poynter Institute. Facebook founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said last month that the WHO and governments have sent more than 100 million messages over WhatsApp.

Write to Newley Purnell at newley.purnell@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 07, 2020 07:09 ET (11:09 GMT)

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