WhatsApp Users Should Chose Private Settings by Default

WhatsApp Users Should Chose Private Settings by Default
SHARE

Rob Heaton, Stripe engineer, wrote a story on his blog about two friends who during a charity walk up decide to found a startup. They get the idea while walking and it is about WhatsApp.

The story of a stalker

The story published by Heaton is about a character which sets up a Chrome web app. This app tracks every ten minutes a specific WhatsApp user’s status to see if that person has had enough sleep. While continuously checking the app, he realizes through the user’s status that he was staying up until late. The creep also realizes that he only need phone numbers to stalk any person he likes. If that person ahs WhatsApp installed and their status is always available, then he can track them down and learn their patterns.

However, this only works for those who access WhatsApp frequently and did not change their privacy settings. However, the instant messaging app shows when users are or are not online.

Why is the story relevant?

Some might think why this story is so relevant so as to write about it. It is relevant because it shows how fragile technology users are. It also makes us understand that private settings for all social networking apps should be private by default. Users should not have their information revealed if they do not want to.

To change your WhatsApp settings to private from your iPhone head to Settings>Account>Privacy; to change your WhatsApp setting to private from your Android device head to Settings>Account>Privacy from the menu button.

The instant messaging service WhatsApp has been bought by Facebook back in 2014 for 16 billion $ and since then it adopted the Open Whisper Systems encryption protocol. This protocol makes messages content private, even from Facebook.


SHARE

I am a pop culture and social media expert. Aside from writing about the latest news health, I also enjoy pop culture and Yoga. I have BA in American Cultural Studies and currently enrolled in a Mass-Media MA program. I like to spend my spring breaks volunteering overseas.

One thought on “WhatsApp Users Should Chose Private Settings by Default

  1. If users do not want their information revealed, they should not use WhatsApp at all. There are so many alternative safe messengers that actually are private by default. I use Threema but there are some others of quality. Even if you have turned on the privacy settings in WhatsApp, it will still collect all your metadata as well as share and compare data with the data from Facebook.

    Reply

Post Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.