Half — the holding company that owns WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and Threads — has announced a new feature for WhatsApp that will help recognize spam groups with greater ease. Thanks to this new feature, when you are added to groups by people you do not know, a “context sheet” containing essential information about the group in question, such as the identity of its creator, the creation date and description, and whether it is a known contact or not. In addition, the tab in question also contains a button that allows you to immediately leave the group if there is something suspicious.
Details of WhatsApp’s new feature to recognize spam groups
Taking a closer look at the Details of the new WhatsApp featureit is very clear how this aims to raise awareness among users of the IT risks also present on the messaging platform, where spam and attempts to obtain sensitive information are increasingly common.
That’s why Meta has announced that, together with the “context card”, a button to immediately leave the group it’s a link to more information about WhatsApp security tools. This approach is very similar to the one used by the platform for some time now with regards to individual messages received from people not present in your contact list: in this last case too, in fact, a card is shown containing quick buttons to easily block or delete the contact (or add it to your contacts if you consider it safe).
When will the new feature announced by Meta be available? According to the company, The new contextual cards will be accessible to all users in the coming weeks.
Another layer of security on top of existing WhatsApp features
Will Cathcart, WhatsApp Head at Metacommenting on the WhatsApp news, said:
This is another layer of security we’ve built on top of existing features (…) like controlling who can add you to groups.
Regarding this last function, we believe that it can be particularly useful to minimize the possibility of running into scams and spam on WhatsApp groups and that is why we invite you to activate it. To do so on Androidafter opening WhatsApp and pressing the button ⋮ (top right), go to Settings > Privacy > Groupsselect the option My contacts and possibly confirm by pressing the button end. If you have iPhoneinstead, go directly to Settings > Privacy > Groupsselect the option My contacts and, if required, confirm your choice by tapping on the wording end.
By doing this, only contacts who are saved in your phone’s address book will be able to add you to a group. If a group administrator tries to add you to their group and their number is not saved in your address book, they will see a message telling them that they cannot add you to the group (the most they can do is send you a private message containing an invitation link to join the group, which expires after three days).
