WhatsApp three-ticks means govt recording your calls or reading messages? Know truth behind this Viral post

A viral social media post on WhatsApp three ticks has yet again fuelled the raging debate on privacy and encryption.

New Delhi: WhatsApp in a petition in Delhi High Court this week said that enabling identification of the first originator of information on its platform in India puts end-to-end encryption and its benefits at risk, as it urged the court to pass direction to declare this requirement ultra vires the IT Act.

The petition by the Facebook-owned instant messenger has yet again fuelled the raging debate on privacy and encryption.

Meanwhile, social media has been lately flooded with a viral message stating that after the implementation of the new IT rules, all your WhatsApp calls will be recorded and the government will monitor the activities apart from all your messages. It is also being claimed in the message that WhatsApp has implemented a new tick system – two blue ticks and one red tick –which will mean that the government can take action, while three red ticks will mean that the government has started the court action respectively.

PIB Fact Check has out rightly rejected all the above claims in its fact-checked tweet and has warned the users against such messages.

एक वायरल मैसेज में दावा किया जा रहा है कि भारत सरकार द्वारा अब 'नए संचार नियम' के तहत सोशल मीडिया और फोन कॉल की निगरानी रखी जाएगी।#PIBFactCheck: यह दावा फ़र्ज़ी है।
भारत सरकार द्वारा ऐसा कोई नियम लागू नहीं किया गया है।
ऐसे किसी भी फ़र्ज़ी/अस्पष्ट सूचना को फॉरवर्ड ना करें। pic.twitter.com/mW9LT2W1k4

— PIB Fact Check (@PIBFactCheck) May 27, 2021

How to get messages fact-checked?

If you get any such suspicious message, you can always know its authenticity and check if the news is for real or it is a fake news. For that, you need to send the message to https://factcheck.pib.gov.in. Alternatively you can send a WhatsApp message to +918799711259 for fact check. You can also send your message to pibfactcheck@gmail.com. The fact check information is also available on https://pib.gov.in.