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New Delhi: These days, a sensational message is floating rapidly in the world of social media, which has created fear and confusion in the minds of millions of WhatsApp users. In this message it is being claimed that the Government of India has implemented new monitoring rules for WhatsApp. Under this, your calls will be recorded, personal chats will be monitored and the special colored tick on the message will decide whether the government is going to take action against you or not. If you have also received such a forwarded message, then be careful, because it is completely baseless and fabricated. In the digital age, it is wise to check the authenticity of any sensational news before taking it forward.

PIB Fact Check exposes fake messages

To clear up this confusion, the Fact Check wing of the Press Information Bureau has declared the viral message as fake. The agency clarified that the government has not issued any new guidelines or orders regarding monitoring of WhatsApp chats or calls.
This claim viral on social media is completely misleading. PIB has appealed to the people not to believe such fake messages and avoid sharing it further without verification.

three blue ticks

Among the claims going viral, the most importance is being given to the issue of changing colors of 'ticks'. False mathematics has been explained in the message that if more than two ticks appear on your WhatsApp or their color turns red or blue, it means that the government has read your message or is going to tighten legal noose on you.
The reality is that WhatsApp's security system works only on the principle of single and double grey/blue ticks. There is no technical or legal basis for linking tick colors to government surveillance.

Are your calls really being recorded?

The scariest aspect of this fake message is the claim that your WhatsApp calls are being recorded. The government and fact checking teams have made it clear that no new rule for call recording or tracing personal messages has come into existence. WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption model protects users' privacy, so that conversations between two people cannot be seen by any third person. Therefore, there is no need to panic just by accepting any anonymous forwarded message as true. In the digital age, it is wise to check the authenticity of any sensational news before taking it forward.