Again with the same thing. Your aunt, your mother and your brother-in-law send you the same WhatsApp message alerted by what it says. WhatsApp is going to be paid! And they are not willing to pay a penny per message as that message that they have forwarded to them assures them. So do not hesitate to copy, paste and forward it to up to 10 different people to avoid such a fee. Well, you better not believe it.
The message that has been circulating on WhatsApp says the following: On Saturday WhatsApp will be billed. If you have at least 10 contacts send them this message. So they will see that you are a regular user and your logo will turn blue and will be free. It has been talked about today in the press. WhatsApp will cost 0.01 euro per message . Send this message to 10 people. When you do, the light will turn blue, otherwise WhatsApp will activate billing.
This is a hoax. But lie and fat, too. And it is that WhatsApp continues and will continue to be a free service, as is Instagram, or Facebook Messenger, or other tools dependent on Facebook whose business is not in the collection of fees to the millions of users who use them. Rather, they earn money through advertising and other services that are included in these applications. So no, WhatsApp is not going to be paid. There is also a lot of data in this message that indicates that it is not true.
Dismantling a new hoax
There are many keys that reveal that this message is nothing more than a hoax to create an alarm and get circulating from chat to chat like wildfire. The first thing is that it has a date that can vary depending on how the message is sent. In this case, talk about "this Saturday", although it could be any date, without identifying a specific day of the month, which would be the ideal way to communicate a news item of these characteristics. In this way you could check on the WhatsApp website or in one of its official sources that fact.
WhatsApp fights against hoaxes and misinformation with a function that it included some time ago and that you will have seen in this same message. We refer to the forwarding sign . Any information shared repeatedly is marked with this sign at the top. A detail that you must associate with hoaxes and viral messages. They may not all be false, but you should at least be suspicious of any information that circulates quickly with this brand on WhatsApp.
There are also details that attract powerfully attention. One of them the change of color of the WhatsApp logo. You may not know that it has always been green. But, if you have never seen it change color, what would make you think that now it is going to happen? It is true that there is a blue version of WhatsApp, but it is not official and it can make you lose your account. Stay with this: WhatsApp is green, always .
Of course, the key to sending it to 10 people is decisive to know that it is a hoax. Of information that only wants to be shared. The more times the better. No service or application offers free to share a message. At most, some benefit or discount. But knowing all the misinformation that exists, forcing yourself to share something only means confirming the origin of this information: a hoax.
Another piece of information that should be taken away from you is the one that states "that it has been spoken in the press." Confirming the news never hurts, and here whoever created the hoax has trusted that the victims would take their word for it. There is a big difference between saying that "something has been talked about in the press" and that you, as a user, confirm that it has really been talked about in specialized media or the general press. Don't be fooled.
But the most important thing to use when confirming information is common sense. Don't take for granted a message that comes to you randomly. And above all, do not forward it .