Soon, WhatsApp will allow you to leave a group chat without being noticed.
It’s one of a few things the encrypted messaging platform is doing to make sure people’s privacy is protected.
WhatsApp is adding a new feature that will let people leave long group chats without telling the other people that they are leaving.
At the moment, it can be awkward to leave a WhatsApp group chat because everyone in the chat knows when you leave. When there are a lot of people, it can also be annoying.
Soon, though, only the admins will be told when someone leaves the group instead of everyone else. This month, all WhatsApp users will start getting the new feature.
It is one of a number of steps that the encrypted messaging platform is taking to make sure privacy is better. The company also announced another tool that lets users hide their online presence so that other people can’t see that they are online.
WhatsApp is also testing a setting that stops contacts from taking screenshots of “View Once” messages, which can only be seen once and can’t be seen again.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, the company that owns WhatsApp, said in a Facebook post on Tuesday that the company would “keep building new ways to protect your messages and keep them as private and secure as face-to-face conversations.”
Ami Vora, head of product at WhatsApp, said in a statement, “At WhatsApp, we’re focused on making product features that give people more control and privacy over their messages.”
“Over the years, we’ve added layers of protection that work together to keep their conversations safe, and the new features are one way we keep our promise to keep messages private.”
Meta has been making a lot of changes to its platforms lately, and this update is just one more.
The company recently changed its main Facebook app to give more weight to algorithmically recommended content and make a new feed that shows posts from friends and family in reverse chronological order.
Meta is trying to win over younger “Gen Z” users who have stopped using social apps like Instagram and Snapchat in favor of TikTok, the wildly popular short-form video platform owned by China’s ByteDance.
The feed on TikTok is set up so that it suggests content based on what it thinks users will be most interested in. This makes it very fun to scroll through.
