WhatsApp Adds New Safety Measures for Group Chats

WhatsApp’s looking to add more transparency to its group invites, by adding more context as to who’s added you to a group, and what the group is about, before you join.

As you can see in this example, WhatsApp’s new group context cards will include a note on who added you to a group, while they’ll also display who created the group, when the group was created, and the group description (if available).

That’ll provide make it easier to avoid spammy groups, or those that you’re being added to by strangers in order to push their own agendas, whatever they may be.

The update comes as part of WhatsApp’s latest group safety update, which also includes new reporting options to help keep you safe.

WhatsApp has seen a rise in group activity, and overall usage in general, as users drift away from public posting, and more towards more private group engagement. And with WhatsApp offering full message encryption, that extra security obviously holds significant appeal, with more and more Western users in particular now signing up to the app.

At the same time, group chats have become a more significant vector for spam as a result of that increased interest, and these new measures will provide additional transparency to help avoid scams.

WhatsApp says that its new group context notes are being rolled out to all users over the next few weeks.