Facebook Messenger introduces forwarding limits to combat fake news
Similar to what Facebook did earlier with WhatsApp, the company said it's putting new limits on Messenger.
On Thursday, the company introduced a message forwarding limit in Messenger, meaning that messages can now only be forwarded to five people or groups at a time.
It works as you'd expect: When you try to forward a piece of content to more than five people at once, you'll get a message saying "Forwarding limit reached," and you will be unable to add more recipients.
The new feature is live in several countries, a Facebook rep told Mashable, and is gradually rolling out to other markets. It will be live for all users globally on Sept. 24.
The idea, Facebook said in a blog post, is to "slow the spread of viral misinformation and harmful content that has the potential to cause real world harm."
In August, Facebook added a fact-checking feature for forwarded messages in WhatsApp, and in April, the company started marking messages that were forwarded many times to let recipients know they didn't come from a close contact.
Topics Facebook Social Media
Stan is a Senior Editor at Mashable, where he has worked since 2007. He's got more battery-powered gadgets and band t-shirts than you. He writes about the next groundbreaking thing. Typically, this is a phone, a coin, or a car. His ultimate goal is to know something about everything.
