WhatsApp is working on a new feature that will block messages from unknown accounts. Before you get too excited about it, there is a big but coming up soon.
If you are using WhatsApp, you may have experienced your fair share of spam. Be it messages from unknown accounts or even calls.
Over the past couple of weeks, I received a significant number of spam calls and also messages. The chat messages promised work, money, a girlfriend, and other things.
It is simple to block interactions with certain accounts on WhatsApp once they try to reach out to you. There are not that many options to block spam before it reaches your device though.
Soon, WhatsApp users will have another weapon in their arsenal to fight spam before it reaches the user’s device. (via WABetaInfo)
The details:
- A new option to block unknown account messages is being tested in the WhatsApp beta.
- It blocks messages from unknown accounts, but only if they “exceed a certain volume”.
- Not every beta tester has the feature at this point.
In other words: If WhatsApp notices a certain amount of spam from a particular user, it will block that user’s ability to send more spam.
WhatsApp does not say how it detects spam messaging attempts. It is possible that it is using spam reports by users for that. This would mean, and here comes the aforementioned but, that spam will still land on user devices.
Not necessarily as much as before, as WhatsApp will pull the plug on the account’s ability to send messages once the threshold is reached.
Even if WhatsApp uses an automated system, it still means that spam will land on user devices, albeit less than before presumably.
Closing Words
All in all, it is a welcome new option that may reduce spam on the platform. It appears that the feature is disabled by default. You may need to enable it under Settings > Privacy > Advanced.
Do you use WhatsApp? Did you receive spam in the past? Would you enable the new feature once it becomes available? Let us know in the comments below.
Only apps I use are LINE and Signal. I thought about signing up to Whatsapp once because the app didn’t have any ads, but shortly afterwards they were acquired by Facebook and that was the end of that ad-free story.
Actually, LINE does contain ads just not in this part of the world. It’s primarily a South East Asia app created in Japan and contains a great many animated stickers which are hilarious which is primarily why I use it. But in countries like Thailand and Vietnam even businesses and banks use it and the app has its own payment processor. It just hasn’t caught on in Europe it seems.