The new feature aims to protect customers from spam calls and scammers. Calls will be logged in the list but your smartphone will not ring.
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It may already work in the next update, but there is no official date. WhatsApp is working for silence calls coming from strangers. The report came from the WebBetaInfo blog which found the clues of the new feature inside the preview code of the app. Everyone numbers not registered in the phonebook who will call on WhatssApp will be displayed in the status and chat list, but the smartphone will not ring. The option to mute calls will be found in aspecific section of the menu present in the settings.
In fact, the new option doesn’t work as a call blocker, it just wants to avoid unwanted interruptions while using the app. It is also a way to protect users from spam calls or from scams. “In recent years, spam calls have become a growing problem with scammers and their unsolicited phone calls, and instant messaging apps are no exception,” WebBetaInfo explained. A poll was done on Twitter to get an estimate of how many people received spam calls on WhatsApp, and the numbers showed a growing phenomenon. “Even spam calls can be dangerous: i scammers can call users for steal personal information or trick people into making payments or providing sensitive data,” WebBetaInfo pointed out.
Newsletters could also arrive on WhatsApp
It is not the only novelty of Meta, WhatsApp in fact could also launch the Newsletter functionality. It hasn’t been made official yet, but since the app has almost 2 billion users, could be fertile ground for the newsletter market to flourish. Not only that, it would also be able to offer an immediate, simple and fast reading experience. Something like WhatsApp already does. In fact, you can send the same message to several people at the same time. The application would then use the same method to forward the newsletter.
The novelty of the newsletters could also be an extra piece in the monetization process set in motion by Meta. Indeed, on February 19, Mark Zuckerberg announced paid blue ticks for Instagram and Facebook accounts (following Elon Musk’s disputed decision on Twitter a few months later).
