WhatsApp launches new features to protect privacy
Image: Unsplash
WhatsApp launches new features to protect privacy
Words: Ellen Kenny
Ireland’s most used messaging app will introduce new features to protect users’ privacy and comfort.
WhatsApp have recently announced several new features to its app that will allow for quiet exits and online privacy.
Users will now be able to make what people somehow call an “Irish exit” on WhatsApp. From now on, only admins will be notified when a user leaves a WhatsApp group, preventing any awkward discussions about why you left a certain group chat. What a perfect way to ghost the work group chat during this sunny weather.
WhatsApp will also prevent users from taking screenshots of “view once” photographs and videos. The app currently allows users to send a photo or video to be viewed only once, but it still allows recipients to take screenshots. It will now remove that feature in the coming weeks to ensure the sender’s privacy.
As previously reported, WhatsApp will now allow users to hide their online status from people in their contacts. Users will be able to choose specific people to hide their online status from, but they can’t see the status of anyone they are hiding from.
Last year, WhatsApp started automatically hiding the last seen to contacts you never chatted with, in order to prevent third-party apps from monitoring our last seen and online status.
However, people already in a user’s contact could still see when they are online. This upcoming update will fix this issue and allow users to adjust their status however they want.
WhatsApp is currently the most used social media messaging app in Ireland, 81 per cent of people surveyed by IPSOS using the app. This is miles ahead of Messenger at 58 per cent and Skype at 24 per cent.
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