July 20, 2018

WhatsApp takes aim at false rumors. It's The Daily Crunch.

THE DAILY CRUNCH
FRIDAY, JULY 20 2018 By Anthony Ha

WhatsApp introduces forwarding limits in an effort to combat misinformation, tech giants team up on a new data transferability project and your friends will now see when you're on Instagram. Here's your Daily Crunch for July 20.

1. WhatsApp limits message forwarding in bid to reduce spam and misinformation

In a new trial, users will only be able to forward messages to 20 groups. In India, which is WhatsApp's largest market, the limit will be lowered to five groups.

Recent coverage has highlighted how false rumors have spread on the Facebook-owned messaging app, leading to vigilante action and multiple deaths in India. The company says, "We believe that these changes — which we'll continue to evaluate — will help keep WhatsApp the way it was designed to be: a private messaging app."

2. Facebook, Google and more unite to let you transfer data between apps

While many companies already let you download your information, that's not very helpful if you can't easily upload and use it elsewhere. So The Data Transfer Project is a new team-up between tech giants to let you move your content, contacts and more across apps.

3. Instagram adds a status indicator dot so people know when you're ignoring them

If you're cruising around Instagram, you can expect to see a green dot next to the profile pics of friends who also are Instagramming right then and there.

4. Blavity raises $6.5 million Series A round led by GV

Blavity is a digital lifestyle media company geared toward black millennials. The company says most of the funding will go toward opening a new office that is strictly focused on engineering and data.

5. Dish is the first TV provider to offer support for Apple's Business Chat

Launched earlier this year, Business Chat allows companies to communicate with their customers over iMessage in order to answer questions, provide customer service or even enable purchases.

6. Surprise! Top sites still fail at encouraging non-terrible passwords

A research project that has kept tabs on the top sites and their password habits for the last 11 years shows that most of those sites provide only rudimentary password restrictions and do little to help users.

7. Here's what Facebook employees were saying about Holocaust denial … in 2009

We exhumed these old comments not as a "gotcha!" moment, but simply as a reminder that this is a longstanding debate — one in which senior Facebook figures have articulated a pretty consistent position.

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