Recently, WhatsApp has been gripped by a number of crises as fake news has spread across its network. This fake news has been used to aid political campaigns but has also seen terrifying attacks carried out by crowds whipped into a frenzy by horrifying stories that weren’t true.
In response to this, the messaging app has enacted a number of initiatives, with the most prominent being limitations to message forwarding.
The first move saw a new Forwarded tag appearing above a message that didn’t originate from its current sender. This then evolved into a Frequently Forwarded tag. A tag becomes a Frequently Forward tag if the message had been shared more than four times. Eventually, WhatsApp set a limit on how many times a message could be forwarded at all. Thanks to this move, WhatsApp messages can only be forwarded five times at once.
Problem is though, the people who were spreading all of that fake news in the first place want to continue doing so. This means there is a demand for software that will help them bypass WhatsApp’s message forwarding limits and, accordingly, WhatsApp clone apps have sprung up that do just that.
Tech 2 reports that these clone apps can cost as little as $14 yet give users the ability to send up to 100,000 messages per day, if not more. A report by Reuters found that these tools were available to buy on Amazon. They were also being used to subvert WhatsApp’s new policies for political reasons as well as in marketing attempts for regular businesses.
WhatsApp has sent out cease and desist letters to a number of clone apps
WhatsApp’s response to these clone apps has been strong. The messaging app wouldn’t even allow Reuters to use one for test purposes.
WhatsApp responded, “We are continuing to step up our enforcement against imposter WhatsApp services and take legal action by sending cease and desist letters to hundreds of bulk messaging service providers to help curb abuse… We do not want them to operate on our platform and we work to ban them.”
As well as ordering the owners of the fake apps to stop operating, WhatsApp is also banning accounts that use them.
This isn’t the first time WhatsApp has taken strong action against users of unofficial versions of the app. Recently, users of GBWhatsApp and WhatsApp Plus were targeted with temporary bans. Some lost their entire chat histories in the process. Those apps were built to offer more user-friendly features like themes and added customization options.
This time, however, the clone apps have a much more criminal underworld feel to them. This money being made facilitating attempts subvert attempts by WhatsApp to make its network a safer place. There is a real battle taking place on WhatsApp, and we all need to hope that the right side wins it.
