Meta-owned WhatsApp announced three new privacy features to provide users with greater protection. “Mark Zuckerberg announces three new WhatsApp privacy features, to kick off a new WhatsApp privacy campaign!” said WhatsApp on Twitter.
The announcement concerns group members, who can see when you’re online, screenshot blocking for
viewing only once, and a new global campaign!” Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and Founder of Meta, has shared three new WhatsApp privacy features, including an announcement for group participants who can view the user’s online status, screenshot blocking for view once, and a new global campaign.
Notable among the three new privacy features are the ability to leave group chats without notifying everyone, the ability to control who can see when you’re online, and the ability to prevent screenshots on view once messages. WhatsApp also announced that it will launch an education campaign to educate people about the new
features. WhatsApp already offers other privacy features, such as end-to-end encryption messaging and
calling for individuals and businesses.
“The focus of their campaign is also to educate people on what true security is: it is important to protect users not only when the information is sent but also when it is stored (for example, by using end-to-end encrypted backups),” according to a WhatsApp release. Furthermore, “Mark Zuckerberg announces that when someone leaves a group chat, the event is no longer notified to all members (except group admins) via a system message within the chat.”
As a result, rather than informing the entire group about this event, only group admins can see it for moderation purposes. According to WhatsApp, “this feature has already been released to some beta testers on Android and iOS, and it will be available to more users this month.”
WhatsApp informed that with the new privacy setting, the user “will have more control over who can see when you’re using WhatsApp and when you don’t want everyone being able to see your online presence, you can choose the option “Same as Last Seen”.
This feature will finally be available to users this month, so make sure to keep your WhatsApp version
up to date. As always, we will notify users when a compatible build is available.”
