To curb the spread of fake news, hate, and harmful content, social media giant Facebook has introduced restricted forwarding on Messenger. Now, users can forward a message to a maximum of five people or groups at a time. This is in line with forwarding restrictions on WhatsApp.  

Facebook said that limiting the number of forwards in messaging can help curb the spread of misinformation and lessen harm in the real world. 

Announcing the new rule in a blog post, Facebook said, "As a part of our ongoing efforts to provide people with a safer, more private messaging experience, today we are introducing a forwarding limit on Messenger, so messages can only be forwarded to five people or groups at a time. Limiting forwarding is an effective way to slow the spread of viral misinformation and harmful content that has the potential to cause real-world harm."

Facebook has already introduced safety notifications, two-factor authentication, and easier ways to block and report unwanted messages, earlier this year. 

The new feature gives one more layer of protection by limiting the spread of viral misinformation or harmful content, and we believe it will help keep people safer online, the Facebook post said. In April this year, Facebook-owned WhatsApp announced to introduce a new limit on frequently forwarding messages where a WhatsApp user can forward such messages to one chat at a time.

This limit kicks in once a message has been previously forwarded five times or more.