Fake News Menace: You can share WhatsApp messages with only up to 5 people

The Facebook-owned instant messaging service is also reportedly testing more features to crack down on fake news on its platform.

Technology News: In response to the government's crackdown on the circulation of fake news, especially using its platform, WhatsApp, the Facebook-owned instant messaging mobile app, has limit the number of people to whom you can forward a message to five.

The move follows several other steps with the same objective, such as issuing guidelines on how to identify forwarded messages and be a responsible user of the service.

The new feature would roll out as part of an app update from this week itself. The step came soon after the government asked WhatsApp and other social media platforms to take onus and help curb fake news circulation, which had been causing violence -- even lynching in some recent cases.

WhatsApp Forward Messages

WhatsApp has also reportedly been testing more features to crack down on fake news on its platform. Recently, the company had started testing a feature in its beta app for Android in which the app recognises authenticity of the link and marks unusual links as ‘suspicious’.

“Spammers may use some character combinations to trick you into tapping on links that appear to go to a legitimate website, but actually take you to a malicious site,” the company said in a statement.

The statement further added that these checks on links happen only on the user device because of end-to-end encryption which does not allow the company to see the content of messages. This also implies that WhatsApp will not be able to stop a malicious link from being forwarded, but can only label it as suspicious once it has…continue reading

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News Source : BS

Here’s what history of advertising suggests about the future of fake news

History also suggests that the danger will probably recede over time as people grow accustomed to the ads, which will cease to work as effectively.

Technology News » Jordan Peele, the comedian turned horror-movie director, recently made a video meant to give American voters shivers of dread.

It showed President Barack Obama giving a speech he never gave, and uttering sentences that he didn’t actually say. The video demonstrated how easy it is to use current technology to create powerful and persuasive lies, now also known as fake news.

When this video magic is coupled with the ability of companies like Facebook to micro-target each of us and select the news we see, the implications for the future of our democracy seem dire. Fake news and micro-targeting can be combined to create a kind of advertising that’s like an evil version of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, and we are being exposed to more of these pernicious morsels every year.

But two lessons from the history of advertising suggest that the fake news phenomenon is likely to change significantly in the years to come. Prospects are gloomy for the near future, as this kind of advertising extends beyond politics. History also suggests, though, that the danger will probably recede over time as people grow accustomed to the ads, which will cease to work as effectively.

First, in all likelihood, fake news will spread, despite efforts to rein it in. So far, most attention has focused on efforts to meddle in American elections. That is no small threat.

Yet, based on the historical record, far more effort goes into persuading Americans to buy things than to elect politicians.

By one estimate, political campaigns in the United States will spend an estimated $8 billion on advertising in 2018. But it is likely to be less than 1/25th of total advertising spending for the year, and new technologies are likely to be deployed more frequently on consumers than voters.

We are already seeing technology being used to shade the truth in advertising that targets consumers.

Read More on → Fake News