I’ve tried blocking unknown WhatsApp messages and I’m clear that this needs to be improved to stop spam and scams.

WhatsApp has a new setting in its beta to block messages from strangers, which seems great since messages from scammers are becoming more and more common, and there’s not much we can do about it. It looked good on paper, but after trying it I can’t help but think that this is an insufficient measure.

I’ve been blocking WhatsApp messages from strangers for almost a week and the impression I have is that in Meta they had the ability to nip spam in the bud and they chose a confusing and very unhelpful middle path.

What blocks messages from unknown WhatsApp accounts

Let’s start at the beginning: what blocks messages from unknown WhatsApp accounts? This is new in WhatsApp testing classified as an advanced security option. As is the case during testing, It is only enabled for certain usersespecially if they are using the beta version. I was lucky to be one of them.

In accounts that have it enabled, it appears in the privacy settings, in the advanced settings. It’s a switch called Block messages from unknown accounts. It is disabled by default.

WhatsApp explains that this option serves to protect your account and improve device performance, highlighting the real problem with this option, which will block unknown messages only if a condition is metyou receive a high volume of messages.

Protection with a lot of “I wills” and few “I cans”

I activated the option and all I had to do was wait. The advantage of a spam blocker is that it should work in the background without disturbing you, which is hardly applicable to blocking unknown WhatsApp messages. When enabled, It does this with a large banner at the top of WhatsApp. We can close it, but it’s almost more annoying than messages from strangers that could reach me.

And it activates frequently. The first days It was activated every time I received a few messages chat from a contact (i.e. not with strangers). This is not a problem, although the truth is that it is distracting because it notifies you every time it turns on and every time it turns off.

Showing a warning every time it is activated is tiring in itself, but the biggest problem is that is designed to continue allowing messages from strangersas soon as the “many messages” sequence has passed. This is intentional, and it is not surprising since WhatsApp’s latest moves have been to open the application so that we can interact with people who are not in our contacts, like communities, send messages to contacts that are not in the calendar or in the future. usernames.

Not only that, but will never avoid the first message from strangersunless it happens that someone wrote to you a lot just before. You will continue to receive as many lonely spam emails offering you a job with an international prefix at 3:00 a.m. and the filter will let it through, just like before.

Instead of having a few message requests, like on Instagram or Messenger, WhatsApp protection is a filter that only works sometimesand when it does, it is quite intrusive. A lost opportunity that cannot be defined by any other name than “I want and I can’t”, although it rather gives the impression that Meta directly “does not want” to let users nip the messages of unknown people. We still hope that it will improve before reaching all users.

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