Bertie Ahern Has Had To Deny That He’s The Subject Of A Certain Viral WhatsApp Message

Bertie Ahern has had to deny that he’s the subject of a voice message that’s gone viral on WhatsApp. 2019 continues to deliver the goods!

In the recording, a woman claims that a friend of hers was ‘catfished’ by the former Taoiseach on Tinder, and ended up going on a date with him.

But apparently, it’s all lies. A spokesperson for Ahern told the Irish Independent that the voice message is “complete rubbish” and the contents are “100% untrue”.

It is unfair that anyone would be subjected to this in any walk of life either political or otherwise. Something should be done to protect people from this sort of thing.

Given the sheer number of viral voice notes that have been circulated in Ireland over the past year, it’s clear it’s not at all limited to people from the political walk of life.

In a bid to stop ‘fake news’ like this from spreading, WhatsApp has said it will be limiting the amount of times a user can forward a message – you will now be able to forward messages to just five other users, rather than 20.

It’s unclear how this will stop messages from being widely shared, after a six-month test in India, found that the cap “significantly reduced forwarded messages around the world”.

• bertie ahern