Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, has rolled out a new WhatsApp privacy campaign by announcing three upcoming new features. The campaign will begin in India and the United Kingdom before spreading to the rest of the world.
The three features encompass leaving group chat silently, controlling who can see when you are online and preventing screenshots on view once messages.
Leave Groups Chat Silently
On the current version of Whatsapp, you might notice that every time you decide to leave a group chat, your action will notify others as well. While it’s good for some dramatic exit, it can also be a bit awkward or rude to let others see that you no longer want to be part of the group. So, this new feature allows you to leave silently and only group admins would know about it.
Controlling Who Can See When You Are Online
This feature lets you choose between showing your online status to everyone, no one, and contacts only, as well as hiding it from specific contacts. This might come in handy especially if you want to avoid a certain individual tracking your Whatsapp footprint.
Prevent Screenshots
Last year, WhatsApp introduced a “View Once” option for posting photos and videos, which disappear once viewed. Many people, however, complained that it was pointless for photos because anyone viewing it could take a screenshot. WhatsApp, like Snapchat, is now introducing a way to block this. Although there isn’t a system that alerts you when someone is taking a screenshot, the new privacy feature will pop up a message that says ‘This screenshot was blocked for added privacy’ to anybody who tries to do so.
On top of these privacy features, Whatsapp also recently announced that they altered the time limits for deleting a message from one hour to two hours.
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