Published at : 06 Mar 2023 01:25 PM (IST)
The Communities feature was released by WhatsApp at the beginning of this year, making it even easier to communicate with thousands of users and solidifying its position as one of the greatest communication applications currently on the market. But, this also implies that our e-mail inbox and phone number will be available to discussions and calls from individuals who we do not know very well. And dealing with arbitrary crypto fanatic group invitations is already enough of a hassle on its own. While the service already enables you to report and ban spammers, there is presently no method to prevent calls from unknown numbers from being answered. If you’re sick and tired of receiving annoying calls from people you don’t know, you’ll be happy to know that WhatsApp is working on a feature that will allow users to silence incoming calls from unknown numbers.
The functionality, which has not yet been publicised, was discovered by WABetaInfo, which had previously uncovered an additional experimental feature known as Newsletters, which was designed to make it easier for groups of people to communicate with one another. According to the publication, the drawback of the newsletter feature will be that it will always show the creator’s phone number publicly. This will make it possible for any member of the WhatsApp Community to call you even if you have not given them permission to do so. According to rumours, the new mute toggle, which was discovered in a recent Android beta but was difficult to see there, will soon be available.
The toggle switch that allows you to mute calls can be located in the Settings menu, as can be seen in the image that follows. When activated, the function should immediately begin preventing your phone from ringing if an incoming call is from an unknown number. But, the calls will still be shown in the call list and notification centre, so you won’t be totally oblivious to the fact that someone attempted to get in touch with you.
For a long time, spam has been WhatsApp’s biggest problem. Spam comes in a variety of forms, including advertisements that pretend to be helpful services. Early on in 2018, it was seen that the service was exploring a more expedient method to filter out spam mails. Although while WhatsApp has a function that allows you to respond to spam messages and calls that have already been sent to you, it has proved to be impossible to avoid receiving them.
A mute toggle seems to be in the process of being developed for the time being and is seen as a potentially useful answer to WhatsApp’s spam concerns. It is unfortunate that it is uncertain when the messaging platform that is owned by Meta will make it accessible to everyone. It is likely going to need at least some level of beta testing conducted by members of the general public first.
We anticipate that a good number of you will be interested in giving this feature a try given the enormous number of spam and unwanted calls that occur on WhatsApp.
