WhatsApp Rolls Out New Privacy Features: Blocks Screenshotting of ‘See Once’ Photos and Videos

By Abdullah Shahid ⏐ 3 years ago ⏐

2 min read

Apart from this, WhatsApp has introduced other privacy features such as hiding your online status in chats and a silent group leaving option

WhatsApp parent company ‘Meta’ has been going through a rough patch lately. Amidst the troubles, the social giant is trying its best to counter competition and protect its market share. This behavior is being noticed in WhatsApp, where Meta is incorporating more and more privacy features to counter competition.

For years, WhatsApp competitors have stood tough on a privacy selling point, realizing that WhatsApp has been harder on privacy these days. The messaging application just recently released a bunch of different privacy features that enhances user experience by two folds.

The first privacy feature is blocking users to screenshot ‘see once’ photos and videos. This was a major privacy problem since users wanted the photo to be displayed once but it ended up being saved anyway. Now with the screenshotting and screen recording block, any user that tries to screenshot a ‘view once’ image, will only get a black photo in their gallery.

Apart from giving out a blank screenshot, WhatsApp will also notify the sender about the screenshot. This will further improve security and allow the sender to take measures. Users will also not be able to forward view once messages.

Just like the screenshot unavailability, another feature that has made news is the individual contact privacy feature. Suppose you don’t want one particular contact to know about your online status then you can simply turn it off in the settings.

This feature allows you to hide three things from any contact you want. These three things include your online, profile photo and status. If you hide all three, its difficult for the user to know if they are blocked or just hidden.

Just a few days back, WhatsApp also tested a feature that allowed users to leave a group without notifying others. Love the new WhatsApp privacy updates? Drop your thoughts in the comments below.