WhatsApp Illustration - Patrick Sison / AP / SIPA

WhatsApp will launch a new feature on Monday to help users spot and protect themselves from “fake news”. Messaging, owned by Facebook, now offers a tool on its app that opens an Internet search, reports Presse-Citron .

The option, in the form of a magnifying glass, will automatically appear when a message has been shared many times on the platform. A simple and efficient way for users to search for additional information on a subject via a simplified Google search.

#WhatsApp adds search function to fight fake news ➡️ https://t.co/kqOYenGmqU pic.twitter.com/mkSat5M5NB

- KultureGeek.fr | High-Tech and Geek News📱💻🎮 (@KultureGeekFr) August 4, 2020

Only a few countries concerned for the moment

This feature is currently only available in a handful of countries: Brazil, United States, Spain, Ireland, Italy, Mexico and United Kingdom. It has been deployed on the latest version of WhatsApp on Android, iOS and WhatsApp Web. WhatsApp has yet to say when the new option will be available to the world.

This button follows another feature implemented in early 2020, at the very beginning of the health crisis linked to the coronavirus epidemic. To limit the wide dissemination of misleading information, WhatsApp had limited the number of chats to which it was possible to forward a message.

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