When you receive forwarded emails, it is pretty obvious as most of the time it comes with the “FW”/”FWD” tags in the subject line. However when it comes to instant messengers, generally there is no distinction between a self-composed message and a forwarded one, but WhatsApp could be changing that.
According to a report from WABetaInfo, it seems that in the latest version of WhatsApp’s Android beta, messages that have been forward will now be marked as forwarded as you can see in the screenshot above. It is unclear as to why anyone would want that kind of distinction in their messages, but it is possible that it could be used as a way to identify spam messages, even though spam messages can already be pretty obvious in the way that they are composed.
However it could help identify if a message has simply been passed along, such as fake WhatsApp messages asking users to forward the message to at least 10 of their contacts otherwise WhatsApp will start charging a subscription fee, something that even in this day and age still pops up from time to time.
That being said as is the case with all beta features, there’s no telling if and when they will be released, and whether or not their final forms will be the same as what we’ve seen in the beta.