Whatsapp Updates Privacy Settings; Introduces Consecutive Voice Note Playback

WhatsApp has rolled out a group privacy setting for users in India that allow users to choose who can add the user to a group, with an option to choose 'Nobody'. The move has been initiated after concerns of misinformation being spread through the platform, especially via the group chats. A slight modification has been made to this privacy setting. WhatsApp is rolling out the feature to users worldwide on both Android and iOS.

WhatsApp has now added a new blacklist option in the privacy settings. Essentially, now when users check the group privacy settings, under the 'Who can add me to groups' setting, besides Everyone and My Contacts, a third option called 'My Contacts Except' has been introduced. This new option will let the user select the persons who have to gain approval before adding the former to a group.

The Nobody option from 'Who can add me to groups' settings has been removed.

Users would be able to see this setting by heading to WhatsApp Settings > Account > Privacy > Groups.

Reportedly, WhatsApp is remotely activating the feature in iOS beta version 2.19.110.20 and Android beta version 2.19.298.

In addition to the new group privacy setting, WhatsApp has reportedly also started to rollout consecutive voice note playback feature to WhatsApp Web. With the new feature, when a user receives multiple voice messages on a chat, he will just have to hit play on the first voice note and all other consecutive ones will play one after the other. However, this feature wouldn’t work if the series of voice notes received is interrupted by some other message or media file.