Whatsapp Will Show A ‘safety Overview’ Before You Join Unknown Group Chats

WhatsApp is adding different characteristic designed to protect you from group chat scams. Now, erstwhile personification you mightiness not cognize invites you to a group chat, nan app will show a caller “safety overview” that appears earlier you tin moreover spot nan messages.

The overview will see accusation astir nan group, including erstwhile it was created, who invited you, and really galore members it has. It will besides see a informing to watch retired for scams, arsenic good arsenic accusation connected really to limit who tin induce you to group chats connected WhatsApp. Once you’ve viewed this page, you tin take to exit nan group without moreover looking astatine nan chat aliases position nan chat for much information.

The characteristic builds upon the “context card” that WhatsApp rolled retired past year, which shows cardinal accusation astir a group. While discourse cards will look for each nan groups you’re invited to, WhatsApp’s caller information overviews will look arsenic an “interstitial” page erstwhile personification you mightiness not admit sends you an invite.

These overviews necktie into WhatsApp’s broader inaugural to combat scams, which person go progressively prevalent — 73 percent of adults successful nan US opportunity they’ve knowledgeable a scam aliases attack, according to a caller study from nan Pew Research Center.

In June, WhatsApp worked pinch Meta and OpenAI to return down a criminal scam halfway successful Cambodia, which utilized ChatGPT to create matter messages promising activity to group who joined a WhatsApp chat group. After directing group to Telegram, scammers asked them to “like” videos connected TikTok arsenic their first task. The bad actors past showed group clone reports astir really overmuch money they had “earned” and later asked them to deposit money into a cryptocurrency relationship arsenic different “task.” 

Other forms of nan scam progressive a rental scooter pyramid strategy and trying to get group to put successful crypto, according to WhatsApp. “By utilizing much platforms, they’re trying to screen their tracks,” Clair Deevy, WhatsApp’s head of outer affairs, said successful a property briefing. “But it besides intends that erstwhile we are moving together, they are exposing themselves to much discovery systems and teams crossed each nan platforms astatine once.”

Along pinch its caller group chat information feature, WhatsApp is besides testing ways to conflict scams that impact bad actors contacting you connected different platforms earlier asking you to transportation your speech to WhatsApp. It is trying retired caller ways to alert group to “pause” earlier they commencement a chat pinch personification not successful their contacts and will show much discourse astir who they’re astir to message.