Meta wants to breathe new life into the “info line” in WhatsApp. According to the company, it was one of the first functions in WhatsApp to let contacts know “what is currently happening in your life”. According to the company, the information function will be placed more clearly and, according to WhatsApp’s wish, should be “more up-to-date and easier to use”.
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More information than “I use WhatsApp”
The new info line now appears as a speech bubble on your avatar in individual chats and in your profile. According to WhatsApp, you should place an emoji in the info line and write a short sentence about what concerns the user. Or capture what you want to talk about. WhatsApp ultimately wants to bring more interaction into the app. Unfortunately, Meta doesn’t say whether this feature is end-to-end encrypted like the messages themselves. Users can specify who can see the info. You can choose between “All”, “My contacts”, “My contacts except…” and “No one”.
The new WhatsApp info function.
(Image: heise media)
According to WhatsApp, you should also be able to respond directly to a person’s information by tapping on it in the chat. By default, the info expires after one day. However, it is possible to set a shorter or longer period. To select the desired duration, open the settings and tap “Set info”.
To make getting started using the info function as low-threshold as possible, Meta offers some pre-formulated options such as “Ready to chat”, “Answers may take some time”, or “Excited”. Of course, emojis can also be set arbitrarily. According to WhatsApp, the function should be distributed to all users.
Most recently, WhatsApp’s entire member directory of 3.5 billion users was “snorkeled” because, according to researchers at the University of Vienna, it was available unprotected on the Internet. This included, among other things, telephone numbers and other profile data – including public keys. Meta refers to the procedure as scraping and says that the data collected as part of the study was securely deleted. There was also no evidence that they were misused by malicious actors.
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(afl)
