WhatsApp update causes number of highly-forwarded messages to plunge

WhatsApp says that highly-forwarded messages have plunged since it introduced new rules. Earlier this month, in a major change, the company announced that it would prohibit people sending on "highly-forwarded" messages in an attempt to stop the spread of viral posts. The new rules mean that if a message has already been sent on in bulk, users have to go to extra effort to forward it on more. If a message has been forwarded enough to get a "highly-forwarded" tag, users can only send it on to one person at a time, rather than five. Now the company says those new rules have worked, and the number of such messages being forwarded on has dropped 70 per cent since the new features were introduced.