The world’s biggest instant messaging platform WhatsApp is adding new cool features for its users. On Tuesday, the company announced that it will be adding new privacy features for its users. According to the company, the features/changes being made are designed to give users more control over their WhatsApp experience and protection over their private messages.
One of the features being introduced by WhatsApp is a stealth mode that’ll allow users to be able to privately use the app without visibly being online. One can just disable their last seen right? So what makes this feature new or different? The feature which WhatsApp calls “online presence control” will allow users to choose contacts that can see or not see their online presence status. While there are no limits to the number of people you can add or not add, users can easily swap people in and out of this list. This feature will be available for both mobile and PC users.
Another interesting feature that WhatsApp is already testing is blocking screenshots for messages that are set to be viewed once. WhatsApp wants to give users more privacy over their “view once” messages by blocking screenshots and letting users know that the other party tried to take a screenshot. The shortcoming, however, is that people can still take photos of a private message using another phone, so you might just need to be careful with what you send…
Another change that is coming to WhatsApp is users’ ability to leave groups privately without alerting the whole neighborhood. Sorry, I mean everyone in the group. Following this new update, only group admins will get notified once someone leaves a group. This feature will be available on both mobile and PC versions of the app.
The company’s Head of Product Ami Vora described these new features/updates as “interlocking layers of protection” aimed to support the platform’s position of being an encrypted messaging platform. “We’ll keep building new ways to protect your messages and keep them as private and secure as a face-to-face conversation,” Meta Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg added.
Additionally, WhatsApp will now let users delete a message for up to 60 hours. This limit was previously 1 hour, 8 minutes, and 16 seconds. But now, users get 60 hours to delete messages.
Ibhadojemu Lucky Emmanuel is a graduate of Education and Economics from the University of Benin. He has a passion for tech and business and has been writing professionally for over a period of five years. He's written across various topics and segments and knew tech-business was it when he first stumbled on it. He has a great passion for music and arts, and wants to visit as many countries as he can someday.
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