WhatsApp Did Not Recently Change Its Privacy Settings
The Claim
WhatsApp has recently changed its group settings to include “Everyone” by default so people you don’t know can add you to a group without your knowing.
News posted on
Emerging story
There is a viral warning circulating on social media, claiming that WhatsApp has recently changed its group settings to include “Everyone” by default so people you don’t know can add you to a group without your knowing.
The warnings say that this update to your privacy settings could leave you vulnerable to scam accounts, hackers, loan sharks, etc.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar’s investigation found this claim to be misleading. The default WhatsApp group setting is “Everyone” and it is very likely that many people didn’t realize that this has always been their privacy setting.
These group privacy settings have been in place since 2019. According to a WhatsApp blog post from 2019, users have 3 options for controlling who may add them to a WhatsApp group. These 3 options are: “Everyone,” “My Contacts,” or “My Contacts Except.”
“My Contacts” means only users you have in your address book can add you to groups and “My Contacts Except” provides additional control for who among your contacts can add you to a group.
The default setting for adding someone to a group has always been “Everyone”. When the app is downloaded for the first time, “Everyone” is the default setting and has been since the introduction of this feature in 2019.
However, there are some people claiming that their privacy settings were set to “My Contacts” and were changed to “Everyone” after the update.
According to Forbes, WhatsApp has stated that the viral warnings are two years out of date, saying “there has been no change to our settings... In 2019 we added new controls for those who wanted to set limits on who could add them to groups.”
WhatsApp has not made a statement about this issue through any of its social media channels.
