”Horrified” WhatsApp promises to sanitize message menace in response to Indian government concern

Amid lyncings and mob violence in India over fake content circulated on Whatsapp, the IT ministry on Tuesday had asked the platform to take some immediate action.

WhatsApp, in a letter to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, wrote, “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.”

A service with over 200 million monthly users in the country, Whatsapp, in turn, spoke about a number of measures which it has taken to curb the circulation of misinformative messages on its platform.

They informed, “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 the content they received was written by the person they know or a potential rumour from someone else. We plan to launch this new feature soon.”

Media reports suggest that over 30 people have been killed after rumours of child-lifting were spread via messages on WhatsApp.

In mid-May, WhatsApp had rolled out a feature wherein a user couldn’t be added back to a group which he left.

It added: “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.’

WhatsApp has also announced that it would work with leading academic experts in a project to understand more about the spread of wrong information.

“The fact-checking organisation Boom Live is available on WhatsApp and has published some reports on the source of the rumours that have contributed to the recent violence,” the popular messaging service said.

The way people use the app remains personal, despite the messages being viral.

The company stated, “Many people (nearly 25 per cent in India) are not in a group; the majority of groups continue to be small (less than 10 people), and nine in 10 messages are still sent from just one person to another.”

It also asked the Indian government for talks about the actions the latter would take to bring an end to this menace.

“With the right action we can help improve everyone's safety by ensuring communities are better equipped to deal with malicious hoaxes and false information -- while still enabling people to communicate reliably and privately across India," it added.

WhatsApp also announced that they would soon engage in a nation-wide program with law enforcement officials so that, "they are familiar with our approach and how we can be helpful".

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology on Tuesday took serious note of irresponsible messages and their circulation on WhatsApp and asked for immediate action to end the menace.

This came after instances of lynching of innocent people have been noticed recently because of a large number of irresponsible and explosive messages filled with rumours and provocation that are being circulated on WhatsApp.

"The unfortunate killing in many states such as Assam, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tripura and West Bengals are deeply painful and regrettable," a government statement said.

While the Law and order machinery is taking steps to apprehend the culprits, the abuse of platform like WhatsApp for repeated circulation of such provocative content are equally a matter of deep concern, the government observed.

WhatsApp has been warned against the spread of such messages.

"Deep disapproval of such developments has been conveyed to the senior management of the WhatsApp and they have been advised that necessary remedial measures should be taken to prevent the proliferation of these fake and at times motivated/sensational messages," a statement said.

Image: Pixabay/Creative Commons