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WhatsApp now lets you hide photo and ‘last seen’ status from certain contacts
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WhatsApp is now rolling out privacy features that enable users to hide their Last Seen status, profile photo and ‘about’ page from certain contacts.
The updated settings add a ‘My Contacts Except…’ option to the privacy section, joining the existing ‘Everyone’, ‘My Contacts’ and ‘Nobody’ options.
“Your last seen, profile photo, about, or status will be available to your contacts from your address book, except those you exclude,” WhatsApp writes on the updatedFAQ page.
‘My Contacts Except…’ Will definitely be handy if you have that one friend who always points out when you’ve been online and haven’t replied to a message.
It could also be useful from a personal safety point of view too, for people who’re a little bit unsure about a contact’s motives. They’ll now have more granular control over who sees what, rather than simply selecting all contacts or none.
There is a caveat though. As before, if you prevent a particular contact from viewing any of those personal details, you won’t be able to view theirs either. Still, being able to select from certain contacts certainly makes this an easier pill to swallow than losing access to everyone’s last seen status in order to protect your own.
🔒 To further protect your privacy online, we’re rolling out new options to your privacy control settings 🔒Now you can select who from your contact list can see your Profile Photo, About, and Last Seen status. For more information follow this link:https://t.co/UGMCx2n70h
The roll out comes after it emerged in testing within the WhatsApp beta appsway back in September 2021, so it’s good to see the Meta-owned company launch it for iOS and Android consumers.
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Chris Smith is a freelance technology journalist for a host of UK tech publications, including Trusted Reviews. He’s based in South Florida, USA. …
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Founded in 2003, Trusted Reviews exists to give our readers thorough, unbiased and independent advice on what to buy.
Today, we have millions of users a month from around the world, and assess more than 1,000 products a year.
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
