WhatsApp is Adding a Feature to Fight Phishing and Fake News

WhatsApp has rolled out a new feature that will detect and mark suspicious website links that are shared in chats. This new feature works when someone shares you a link to a suspicious website that either contains rumors, fake news or hate speech.

How Will It Work?

Messages found to be suspicious in nature will carry a warning label marked in red and will be highlighted as “Suspicious Link”. It will also show you another warning message after you’ve tapped on the link. Nevertheless, users are free to continue to the website anyway.

This will be done when WhatsApp suspects the link to be either fake with the objective of ‘phishing’ or is simply spam and should be ignored.

This feature has been added to version 2.18.206 and is enlisted under what’s new in the update. Note: the update isn’t currently available on Google Play Store, the latest version is 2.18.203.

Other Features Added

WhatsApp hasn’t stopped there as the company is including new features that will help its users have more control over what’s being shared and will also be able to know who is sharing it. The company will also roll out a feature that will let its users know whether or not the message was written by the sender or it was a forwarded text.

The company has teamed up with an Indian fact-checking group, that will detect and mark the news locally to ensure the company is not relying on AI or algorithms to figure out sensitive data being shared.

WhatsApp has also announced a feature recently that gives the group admin more control over what can be shared in their groups.


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The Cause Behind Adding This Feature

In spring, WhatsApp became the top source of political misinformation ahead of local elections in India, where the platform is used by more than 200 million users. When the issue went beyond control, the Indian government asked WhatsApp to do something about it.

These malicious links lead towards rumors about child abductions and alleged organ harvesters, which have reportedly contributed to dozens of lynching incidents in India after fake messages were spread through WhatsApp over the past several weeks.

Via Android Authority



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