You are correct. There is no reason for WhatsApp to shut down forwarding immediately ...It’s not like any credible competitor is out there (and if any emerged, chances are it would be strangled in its cradle by concerned governments).
5 karma · joined May 25, 2019
Virality via email didn’t have the same impact, simply because there was so much spam that people don’t trust the medium. USENET was similar, with the trolls drowned out by pure spam, and no one trusting anyone.
Social media presents unique challenges that do not exist on other parts of the internet.
Twitter, despite having stricter moderation (which seldom seems to result in consequences), seems to have an even bigger problem. An election in a certain country (I'm wary of even mentioning the name of that country, lest I be bombarded) exposed a huge army of dubious accounts shutting down dissent.
In another country, a network of Twitter bots attempted to start a race war.
Then there are the 100k+ follower accounts that seem to get away with blatant incitement and rule-breaking, and Twitter is too afraid of a backlash to shut them down, even when they admit to having multiple admins (something that should disqualify them from the blue checkmark).
WhatsApp seems to be an even more pernicious vector of viral garbage...why it doesn't disable forwarding entirely (or forwarding to groups) remains a mystery.
It isn't an SV phenomenon: in another recent election, WeChat was used to spread fake electoral propaganda.
It may be time, for the sake of democracy, and stability in the world to "de-platform" the platforms entirely. The other option would be for remorseful founders to allow them to be swamped with spam (it might provide plausible deniability to shareholders), and be killed off that way.