WhatsApp Launches Campaign to Educate Users About its Privacy Features

On the 23rd of August, WhatsApp, the Meta-owned social messaging platform, launched the very first Indian edition of its global brand campaign to spread awareness among its users about a series of layers that will provide them with more privacy and control over conversations when messaging.

In a press release, WhatsApp said that the primary objective behind this campaign is to educate its users about the platform’s “built-in layers of privacy protections.” Over the years, the company has added these layers, including three latest privacy features: controlling who can see when the user is online, silently exit groups, and blocking screenshots for ‘view once’ messages.

As per the recent release, the new features were already announced as a part of the global campaign earlier this month, which resulted in addition to a host of already existing privacy features. The announcement also represents how the company managed to get several layers of privacy controls together to offer users, even more privacy when they are engaged in private conversations while messaging.

Over the coming weeks, WhatsApp aims to educate users on each privacy feature through short reels which will highlight their benefits and the steps to activate them so that users can take advantage of WhatsApp’s built-in layers of protection, which include:

The social messaging platform aims to use short video clips to educate its users on every feature of privacy. These short films will summarize basic details about the benefits of these new features and the steps to use them so that each user can take advantage of these multiple layers of protection.

These built-in layers include the following features:

Exit Groups Silently: Users can leave a group without notifying other members.

Select Who ‘Can’ and ‘Can’t See’ When a User is Online – WhatsApp is coming up with the idea of giving its users a choice to keep their online presence private. It will help users when they don’t want to let people know that they are online.

Screenshot Blocking for ‘View Once’ Messages: To add one more layer of privacy, WhatsApp will introduce a feature allowing users to screenshot block ‘View Once’ messages. This feature is expected to be released to users soon, as it is currently being tested.

Default End-to-End Encryption (E2EE): WhatsApp, by default, has an end-to-end encryption feature, allowing users to keep their conversations private.

Encrypted Backups: This platform will give its users the option to allow them to back up their chat history with end-to-end encryption so that it will be secured and can only be accessed with an encryption key or password.

Disappearing Messages: This feature will let users set certain durations for disappearing messages which can either be for 24 hours, 7 days, or 90 days. Users can share videos and photos that will disappear after a message has been opened.

Block and Report: WhatsApp users can select the option to stop getting calls and messages from specific contacts on their list by blocking and reporting them if they receive some form of problematic content or spam.

Two-Step Verification: This feature will allow users to set a unique PIN of six digits, which will be used when registering their mobile numbers with WhatsApp again.