We know it already, and we didn't need WhatsApp to tell us that Indians send more forwards - messages, photos and videos - than people anywhere else in the world. With that in mind, and the Fake News and misinformation mess it has allowed to fester in India, WhatsApp is testing adding more friction to the process of forwarding messages, which it will be introducing in its beta build. (update: Washington Post scooped this story) WhatsApp is doing two key things to add friction 1. For media messages, it is removing the forwarding button next to it. Thus, to forward a media message, users will have to select the message, click on the forwarding icon on the top menu bar, and then forward. This adds one extra step to the forwarding process. 2. It is restricting forwarding to 5 people/chats at the same time. Thus, if you're forwarding a message, you can only select 5 people/groups from your contact list to forward it to. Thus, to forward it to 50 people, you'll have to forward the message 10 times, selecting 5 people each time. This adds a significant amount of friction. From a product perspective, it's important to remember that these are very significant changes: apps look to reduce friction, since each additional step means that the propensity to use it is lower. Some thoughts on this change These are welcome moves from Whatsapp, but some concerns remain. 1. If it's important to them, people will forward: The kind of…
