Digital messaging service WhatsApp says it is "horrified" by lynchings and mob beatings in India, triggered by false content shared on its platform, and that it is working on a feature to reduce the spread of unwanted messages. WhatsApp added such a task requires a partnership involving the government, civil society and technology companies.
WhatsApp was responding to Indian government demands for “immediate action” to contain what officials described as “irresponsible and explosive messages.” The government has been scrambling to rein in the violence it says has been tied to information circulated on smartphones through the popular Facebook-owned messaging service.
The fake messages are extracting a deadly toll in India. Since May, more than a dozen people have been killed and many beaten by mobs inflamed by false warnings about child abductors or thieves.
After the latest incident in which five men from a nomadic community were killed on Sunday in a village in the western Maharashtra state, the government sent a tough message to WhatsApp saying the service cannot escape “accountability and responsibility.”
In a reply to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, the messaging service said that it is working hard to educate people about how to identify hoaxes.
WhatsApp said the feature being tested will show users when a message has been forwarded rather than composed by the sender. Also, regarding group chats, WhatsApp said it is also introducing new controls that give administrators the power to determine who gets to send messages within groups. “This will help reduce the spread of unwanted messages into important group conversations as well as the forwarding of hoaxes and other content,” the company said.
Whether these measures will help in countering the social media-driven issue remains to be seen.
Technology expert Nikhil Pahwa said he feels the messaging service needs to be more responsible with what it allows users to do with its platform. “On WhatsApp, when a user publishes something, there is no attribution,” he points out. “There needs to be a message identity which links that to the original creator. For every forwarded message, it needs to be treated as a public message.”
Local governments struggling to cope with the deadly rumors are promising stern action against those circulating the messages. They have launched awareness campaigns and appealed to people not to believe the false information. But even those efforts have sometimes turned fatal. Last week, a man employed to travel from village to village in the northeastern state of Tripura to warn about the dangers of fake news and rumors himself became the target of a mob that killed him.
With more than 200 million users, India is WhatsApp’s largest market. Many of the people who own smartphones and are avid users of the messaging servicing are using the technology for the first time.
