WhatsApp has announced that it will limit the number of contacts to which it will be possible to forward a received message to five, to avoid the spread of false news and disinformation campaigns. The limitation was already in place in India, where in recent months several people had been lynched and killed following the dissemination of videos and viral messages accusing them of kidnapping children, in a completely arbitrary and baseless manner. WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, had intervened in July by limiting the number of possible forwardings to 20, placing the threshold of 5 users in India alone. Now Victoria Grand, the executive of the company, has announced that the limit of 5 contacts will be introduced in all countries of the world, starting today for Android phones and soon also in the iOS version of the app.
