Trying to isolate over 100 million users from private and secure communication is a backwards step and can only lead to less safety for people in Russia. We continue to do everything we can to keep users connected. The move fits into the Kremlin's aim to achieve a sovereign internet an online space cut off from western technology and foreign influence, and more vulnerable to state control.
Called Strict Account Settings, the new lockdown-style feature is meant to prevent sophisticated cyberattacks that could be targeting journalists and public figures. Set to roll out over the coming weeks, the new feature will allow users to block attachments and media from unknown senders, as well as to silence calls from people they don't know. Additional extreme protection settings will also be available when Strict Account Settings is enabled, limiting how the application works, WhatsApp says.
The FTC said Tuesday it will appeal the November ruling in favor of Meta in its antitrust case against the social media giant. The FTC said it continues to allege that, for more than a decade, Meta Platforms Inc. has "illegally maintained a monopoly" in social networking through anticompetitive conduct "by buying the significant competitive threats it identified in Instagram and WhatsApp."
Google Ads may be testing the ability to subscribe to support updates via WhatsApp. Google has rolled out a new option to get real-time support case updates directly on WhatsApp, at least some folks are seeing this. Arpan Banerjee posted about this enhancement on LinkedIn and said, "A small feature, but a big boost in convenience for anyone managing Google Ads."
WhatsApp has been hit with a global outage and thousands of users are reporting issues to DownDetector and a message reads "Unexpected error occurred." A person posted on X, "Hello!! Is anyone in Argentina having problems with WhatsApp Web??? It won't connect on me, it's giving me an error." Another said: "WhatsApp is down for many users in India." Another wrote, "Global problem. Here in Chile it's down too."
For those of you that have used WhatsApp from the very start, you'll remember About was our first feature. Even before we brought the world private and secure messaging, we made it simple for you to quickly share what's up in your life. Today we're reintroducing and improving About, making it more visible, timely, and easier to use.
This has been revealed by Austrian researchers, who were able to extract phone numbers for all 3.5 billion WhatsApp users. And for around 57% of those 3.5 billion users, the researchers were also able to access their profile photos, and for another 29%, the text on their profiles. If you're wondering what black hat hacking magic trick they needed to use, well, none.
The tech giant said it's detected and disrupted about 8 million accounts engaging in scam operations during the first half of 2025, including those associated with scam centers in areas like Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, the United Arab Emirates, and the Philippines. It also took action on over 21,000 Facebook Pages and accounts that were pretending to be customer support operations that were attempting to trick people into sharing their information.
To that end, the company said it's introducing new warnings on WhatsApp when users attempt to share their screen with an unknown contact during a video call so as to prevent them from giving away sensitive information like bank details or verification codes. On Messenger, users can opt to enable a setting called "Scam detection" by navigating to Privacy & safety settings.
A federal judge has granted Meta-owned WhatsApp's request for a permanent injunction blocking Israeli cyberintelligence company NSO Group from targeting the messaging app's users. At the same time, the judge dramatically reduced the fine that NSO Group must pay to Meta. Earlier this year, a jury decided that the cyberintelligence company would have to pay Meta more than $167 million following a 2019 campaign that targeted more than 1,400 WhatsApp users, including human rights activists and journalists.
Would you want to be in a group chat with your favorite sports celebrities and athletes? You'll have your chance this fall, thanks to a collaboration between WhatsApp and OffBall. OffBall, a year-old sports media startup that focuses on careful curation for its followers, announced on Friday that it was bringing back The Chat, which it had previously conducted with sports stars such as LeBron James.
WhatsApp is attempting to solve its spam problem by putting a curb on how many messages individual users and businesses can send to unknown people without getting a response. While the app started as an easy way to send messages to personal contacts, over time, it has become more complex with groups, communities, and business messaging. With those changes, people are getting more messages than ever, and it is hard to catch up with all of them.
At the beginning of September, Infobip, a leading Cloud Communications as a Service (CPaaS) platform, and the MoneyGram Haas Formula One (F1) team announced that they were going to launch a WhatsApp-based conversational assistant at the F1 race that took place at Monza, in Italy, on September 7th. The conversational assistant, available via a Click-To-WhatsApp ad integration from Facebook and Instagram, was designed to enable the team to develop deeper connections with fans worldwide by giving them the chance to win signed race memorabilia
WhatsApp has announced a new feature called Message Translations, which, as evident from its name, allows users to translate text messages in chats. The Message Translations feature works with 1:1 conversations, group chats, and Channels. When you see a message in a different language, you can long-press that message, tap "Translate," then choose the language you want that message to be translated from or to.