WhatsApp Will Let Users Exit Groups Privately, Introduces More Privacy Features

Ololade Adeyanju/

WhatsApp is introducing a small flurry of privacy-minded tweaks into the messaging app, the company announced yesterday.

The Meta-owned globally ubiquitous messaging service says the changes aim to give users more control over their experience while introducing “added layers” to protect their private communications.

The popular messaging app currently alerts all members of a group chat to someone leaving or being removed by default.

And while there are ways to disable this for individual group chats, the option to leave silently is not presented to users when they choose to “exit group” – sometimes causing awkwardness, embarrassment or drama for those trying to leave unnoticed.

With the recent changes, users will be able to leave without notifying the other group chat users, only alerting group administrators.

This change should make moving through groups on the app more fluid and less awkward.

This change will roll out to both the desktop and mobile version of the app, the company said.

According to Techcrunch, WhatsApp will also introduce an option for users to privately use the app without being visibly online, something it calls “online presence control.”

The feature, which rolls out to everyone this month, will let WhatsApp users curate which contacts can see their online status while hiding it from others. The list of contacts who can view your online status doesn’t have a cap and you can swap people in and out at any time. The company says that the update will also come to both its desktop and mobile app offerings.

The company is also testing screenshot blocking for “view once” messages, which disappear after being opened a single time. WhatsApp introduced a disappearing media option a year ago, reminding users at the time that they wouldn’t be able to know if the recipient was saving any shared photos and videos as screenshots.

The feature is in testing for now but the company hopes to get it out to users broadly “soon.” (It’s worth remembering that anyone can still take a photo of their screen with a different device, which should make you think twice about getting too comfortable on apps with disappearing messaging.)

WhatsApp Head of Product Ami Vora described the additions as a boost to the app’s “interlocking layers of protection,” which aim to bolster its status as a prominent encrypted messaging option.

The company has made other efforts over the years. Last fall, it closed one possible weak spot in its encrypted messaging service, adding end-to-end encryption for backups stored in the cloud.

“We’ll keep building new ways to protect your messages and keep them as private and secure as face-to-face conversation,” Meta Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said of the new features.

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