WhatsApp may soon ban 'frequently forwarded' messages

After having worked on fighting the spread of fake news on social media, Facebook-owned messaging giant WhatsApp is looking to make an addition by barring frequently forwarded messages in a group chat.

📝 WhatsApp beta for Android 2.19.97: what's new?
WhatsApp is experimenting a new feature under development that prevents to send frequently forwarded messages in groups, when enabled! 😱https://t.co/u6MExGVPYK

The feature is not available yet and it will be enabled in future.

— WABetaInfo (@WABetaInfo) April 6, 2019

According to WaBetaInfo, the feature will only be available to group admins and will work in a group chat. Previously, ‘frequently forwarded’ tag had started appearing for messages which were forwarded more than four times.

With this move, the company aims to filter out spam and hoax messages. While there is no stopping users from copying messages and creating new ones to forward out of them but that does somehow make it much tougher to do. Reportedly, the company is also working on an integrated reverse image search which will quickly and efficiently verify images received.

WhatsApp is still rolling out the new Privacy Settings for Group (Android and iOS beta) in recent updates.
The roll out is incredibly slow, so don't worry if the feature is not enabled for you yet. Be patient.

— WABetaInfo (@WABetaInfo) April 10, 2019

The feature is still in beta testing and no official confirmation has been received of its rollout.

This story originally appeared on Android Authority.