Tag: WhatsApp

WhatsApp rolling out ‘approve new participants’ feature to beta testers

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San Francisco: Meta-owned WhatsApp is reportedly rolling out a new feature — “approve new participants” in group settings for some beta testers on Android and iOS.
With this feature, group administrators will be able to manage how the approval of new members works in their groups, according to WABetaInfo.
In particular, when the option is enabled, anyone trying to join a group will be subject to approval by an administrator.
Moreover, the report said that the feature could offer more control over who joins the group — by toggling the approve new participants option, group admins will now be able to approve or reject new participants when they join the group, even if they have used a group invite link.
In addition, this could also help admins limit the large number of requests they receive from people who want to join a subgroup of their community.
This feature will roll out to even more beta testers over the coming weeks, the report mentioned.
Meanwhile, WhatsApp is reportedly developing a new feature — “silence unknown callers” — which will allow users to mute calls from unknown numbers while still showing them in the calls list and notification centre.
The new feature is currently under development on WhatsApp beta for Android.

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#WhatsApp #rolling #approve #participants #feature #beta #testers
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 11, 2023
WhatsApp says will leave UK market if forced to stop end-to-end protection

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London: Meta-owned WhatsApp has said it will leave the UK market if forced to weaken its end-to-end encryption for users under the upcoming Online Safety Bill.
In a briefing with reporters, WhatsApp Head Will Cathcart slammed the legislation as the most concerning set of online regulations in the western world, reports Wired.
“We’ve recently been blocked in Iran, for example. But we’ve never seen a liberal democracy do that,” Cathcart was quoted as saying in reports.
“Ninety-eight per cent of our users are outside the UK. It would be an odd choice for us to choose to lower the security of the product in a way that would affect those 98 per cent of users,” he categorically said.
Cathcart says he is concerned that the bill could make it harder for WhatsApp and other messaging platforms to provide end-to-end encryption.
“It’s hard to imagine we’re having this conversation about a liberal democracy that might go around people’s ability to communicate privately,” he told reporters.
A provision in the Online Safety Bill requires tech companies to use “accredited technology” to scan users’ messages for child sexual abuse material or CSAM.
According to security researchers, it is impossible to introduce such a measure without breaking end-to-end encryption.

In 2021, Apple introduced plans to scan users’ messages for CSAM but shelved those after facing criticism from the security researchers.
The Online Safety Bill also puts the onus on Big Tech and firms that fail to comply with the new rules could face fines of up to 18 million pounds, or 10 per cent of their annual global turnover, whichever is highest.
New measures in the law include tougher and quicker criminal sanctions for tech bosses and new criminal offences for falsifying and destroying data.
The Online Safety Bill will require social media platforms, search engines and other apps and websites allowing people to post their own content to protect children, tackle illegal activity and uphold their stated terms and conditions.
“The Bill will strengthen people’s rights to express themselves freely online and ensure social media companies are not removing legal free speech. For the first time, users will have the right to appeal if they feel their post has been taken down unfairly,” former Digital Secretary Nadine Dorries had said last year.
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#WhatsApp #leave #market #forced #stop #endtoend #protection
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 10, 2023
WhatsApp to clearly outline how its privacy updates will affect EU users

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London: Meta-owned WhatsApp has committed to being more transparent on changes to its terms of service in the European Union.
The European Commission said in a statement that the company will make it easier for users to reject updates when they disagree with them, and will clearly explain when such rejection leads the user to no longer be able to use WhatsApp’s services.
Also, WhatsApp confirmed that users’ personal data are not shared with third-parties or other Meta companies — including Facebook — for advertising purposes.
“I welcome WhatsApp’s commitments to changing its practices to comply with EU rules, actively informing users of any changes to their contract, and respecting their choices instead of asking them each time they open the app,” said Didier Reynders, Commissioner for Justice.
“Consumers have a right to understand what they agree to and what that choice entails concretely, so that they can decide whether they want to continue using the platform,” Reynders said in a statement late on Monday.
The Consumer Protection Cooperation Network (CPC) will actively monitor how WhatsApp implements these commitments when making any future updates to its policies and, where necessary, enforce compliance – including by the possibility of imposing fines.
A recent European Commission study showed that many companies use “dark patterns”, for example making it more difficult to unsubscribe from a service than to subscribe to it.
The CPC Network first sent a letter to WhatsApp in January 2022, following an alert by the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) and eight of its member associations on alleged unfair practices in the context of WhatsApp’s updates to their terms of service and privacy policy.

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#WhatsApp #outline #privacy #updates #affect #users
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 7, 2023
WhatsApp may let users ‘mute calls’ from unknown numbers

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San Francisco: Meta-owned WhatsApp is reportedly developing a new feature, “silence unknown callers”, which will allow users to mute calls from unknown numbers while still showing them in the calls list and notification centre.
According to WABetaInfo, the new feature is currently under development on WhatsApp beta for Android.
This feature will also include several advantages, such as reducing interruptions and potentially avoiding spam calls.
Users will find the toggle located in the app settings, and once enabled, calls from unknown numbers will get silenced, but they will still be shown in the calls list and notification centre, said the report.
Meanwhile, WhatsApp is rolling out a new “Split view” feature for tablets, which will allow users to see and use two different sections of the application side by side at the same time, on Android beta.
Usually, the chat view takes up the entire screen when users open a chat on the tablet version of the application and then users have to go back to the chat list again if they want to open a different conversation.
With the new feature, the chat list will always be visible when opening a chat.

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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 6, 2023
WhatsApp bans 29 lakh accounts in India as country launches grievance panel

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New Delhi: Meta-owned WhatsApp banned more than 29 lakh accounts in India in the month of January, a figure that is drastically lower than 36.77 lakh accounts it blocked in the country in December last year, in compliance with the new IT Rules 2021.
Between January 1 and January 31, “2,918,000 WhatsApp accounts were banned. 1,038,000 of these accounts were proactively banned, before any reports from users,” the company said in its monthly compliance report.
The most popular messaging platform, which has nearly 500 million users in the country, received 1,461 complaint reports in January in the country, and the records “actioned” were 195.
“This report contains details of the user complaints received and the corresponding action taken by WhatsApp, as well as WhatsApp’s own preventive actions to combat abuse on our platform,” said a company spokesperson.
Meanwhile, in a bid to empower millions of Indian social media users, Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, on Tuesday launched the Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC) that will look into their concerns regarding content and other issues.
The newly-formed panel, a move to strengthen the country’s digital laws to tame the Big Tech companies, will look into appeals by users against decisions of social media platforms.
The IT Ministry last month notified to establish three Grievance Appellate Committees (GACs) as required under the recently amended IT Rules, 2021.
In a major push towards an open, safe, trusted and accountable Internet, the Ministry of Electronics and IT has notified some amendments aimed at protecting the rights of ‘Digital Nagriks’.

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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 1, 2023
WhatsApp may bring ‘schedule group calls’ to future update

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San Francisco: Meta-owned WhatsApp is reportedly working on a new feature called “schedule group calls”, which it may bring in a future update to Android and iOS users.
According to WABetaInfo, the feature is under development, so it is not ready to be released to beta testers.
The feature will make it easier for users to plan a call with other members of the group.
The feature will include a new context menu that introduces a scheduling option when the feature is enabled for users’ accounts in the future, according to the report.
Moreover, users can choose when the group call starts and assign a name to the scheduled call.
The report further mentioned that the group call scheduling feature is compatible with both audio and video calls. Also, when the call starts, all group members will be notified so they can quickly join it.
Meanwhile, WhatsApp is reportedly working on a feature which will allow users to edit messages on the platform, on iOS beta.
The new feature will give users up to 15 minutes to edit their messages to fix any mistakes or include any additional information to the original message.

This feature is currently under development and is not ready to be released to beta testers.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

February 25, 2023
Telangana: WhatsApp chats analysed in PG medico’s attempted suicide case

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Hyderabad: Warangal Police Commissioner AV Ranganath said that WhatsApp chats have been analysed in the PG medical student D Preethi’s attempted suicide case.
He said that officials have analysed the WhatsApp chats which revealed that the accused resorted to targeted harassment of Dr. Preethi to insult her.
“The intelligent and brave girl, who attended the UPSC interview in the past, expressed her anguish over his “bossism” and “persistent harassment” through WhatsApp chats. She looked up what could happen if a healthy person takes certain anesthesia drugs on Google. This could be considered an attempt to commit suicide,” he said.
He however added that it was too early to come to a conclusion at this juncture.
The official further said, “We are awaiting toxicology report from NIMS hospital which will help ascertain the facts.”
The Warangal police on Friday arrested Dr. MA Saif, a second-year post-graduate medical student of the Kakatiya Medical College (KMC) in connection with the alleged suicide attempt by Dr. D Preethi.
A V Ranganath said that Dr. Saif was arrested based on a complaint filed by the father of Dr. Preethi under the SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and Section 4 of the Telangana Prohibition of Ragging Act. Saif was remanded to judicial custody.
The victim’s father Narender, an ASI in the Railway Protection Force (RPF) lodged a complaint against Dr. Saif at Matwada police station accusing him of persistently harassing his daughter.

The police booked Dr. Saif on charges of instigating Preethi to attempt suicide by subjecting her to constant harassment by posting “insulting comments” about her on the WhatsApp groups managed by some of the PG medical first and second year students of the KMC.
Ranganath referring to some unsubstantiated allegations being circulated on social media said there is no laxity on the part of the police in attending to the complaint filed by Dr. Preethi’s father. An impartial and discrete investigation is underway into the case, he told reporters.
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#Telangana #WhatsApp #chats #analysed #medicos #attempted #suicide #case
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

February 24, 2023
WhatsApp now lets users report status updates on iOS beta

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San Francisco: Meta-owned messaging platform WhatsApp is reportedly rolling out a new feature, which will allow users to report status updates, on iOS beta.
The beta testers will see a new “Report” option in the status updates, reports WABetaInfo.
With the new feature, users can report any status update that might violate the Terms of Service, which will then be sent to the moderation team.
Also, the feature makes sure that the messages, media, location sharing, calls and status updates are all protected by end-to-end encryption on all devices.
This means that the content of the messages and private calls will remain inaccessible to anyone, including WhatsApp, Meta or any third-party proxy provider.
The new feature is useful as it will make the platform safe and secure for all users.
The ability to report status updates is available to some beta testers after installing the latest beta version of the application, and it is expected to roll out to more users over the coming days, the report said.
Last month, WhatsApp was reportedly working on this feature for Android beta.

Meanwhile, earlier this month, the messaging platform had announced that it was rolling out new features coming to its status, including ‘Voice Status’, ‘Status Reactions’ and much more.
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#WhatsApp #lets #users #report #status #updates #iOS #beta
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

February 24, 2023
Hyderabad: Woman strips on WhatsApp video call, honey traps man for Rs 5 lakh

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Hyderabad: A government employee in Hyderabad became a victim of a honey trap and lost Rs. 5 lahks after a woman he befriended on Facebook stripped on WhatsApp video calls. Later, the victim approached the Hyderabad Cyber Crime police and reported the incident, stating that he was cheated after a sleazy chat and video call.
As per the police complaint lodged by the victim, the woman sent a Facebook friend request to him a few months ago, and they started chatting. After conversations on Facebook, she asked for his WhatsApp number, which he shared.
After obtaining the WhatsApp number, she started making video calls and appearing in the nude, asking him to strip as well. It is alleged that the woman recorded the video call using a screen recording application to extort the money by threatening to make it public.
Based on the complaint, police registered a case and started investigation into the matter.
The incident highlights the potential risks of communicating with strangers on social media platforms. It is important to exercise caution, especially when engaging in WhatsApp video calls with unknown persons, as it can be easily recorded and used for nefarious purposes.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

February 18, 2023
Kashmir: Doctors Deliver Baby In 3 Idiots Style, Through Whatsapp Call – Check Here – Kashmir News

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Gynecologist from Kralpora PHC motivated paramedical staff through Whatsapp call: BMO
Srinagar, Feb 12: Doctors in the Keran area of north Kashmir’s frontier Kupwara district have managed a delivery of a baby without a gynaecologist, in a 3 Idiots style. Both mother and baby are safe.
BMO Kralpora Dr M Shafi while talking to the news agency Kashmir News Observer (KNO) said that on Friday, an expecting mother from the Kalas Keran area with labour pain was brought to Primary Health Centre (PHC) Keran where there was no gynaecologist posted.
“We tried to shift the patient to Kralpora but the inclement weather didn’t allow us to do so,” he said. “Even due to continuous snowfall, we were unable to take the patient to any other hospital.”
Doctors deliver baby 3 Idiots style in Kupwara’s Keran
Given the circumstances, the BMO said the gynaecologist of Kralpora PHC motivated the paramedical staff at PHC Keran through a WhatsApp call and asked them to manage her delivery.
The staff was earlier a bit reluctant; however, after motivating them, they managed the delivery quite normally, he said.
Both baby and mother are fine and have been discharged, the BMO said. “This is not the first time that we have managed the emergency patients in this way and Keran being at high altitude faces such issues frequently.”—(KNO)

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( With inputs from : kashmirnews.in )

February 12, 2023