Fact Check: No changes were made to WhatsApp group privacy settings after shutdown
On October 4, 2021, there was a total shutdown of three social media platforms including Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram.
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Hours after the situation was brought under control, there was a viral post that claimed that there have been changes to WhatsApp privacy settings.
The claim was that the settings allowed users to be added to any group even by someone who is not in their contact lists.
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According to fact-checking website DubawaGhana, the claim is partly false as this is not an entirely new feature of WhatsApp.
It stated the supposed change can only be possible if the WhatsApp user has in their privacy group setting selected “Everyone”.
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On the flip side, if the WhatsApp user in his or her privacy group setting selects "My contacts", only those whose number has been saved by the user can add them to a group without their consent.
Another interesting thing to note is that when the group setting is turned to “Contacts,” another WhatsApp user cannot automatically add you to a group but would rather have to invite you to join a group.
In these settings, users have been given a chance to operate in their own space.
YEN.com.gh however tested this viral claim by setting it to both 'everyone' and 'my contacts' and found it to be partly true and not as speculated that WhatsApp has changed the settings.
YEN.com.gh has however come to a conclusion that this setting has not been changed; neither has it been newly updated but has been so for a long time.
Users have always had the option of changing their group settings to what is preferred by them.
Mark Zukerberg apologises for social media shutdown
Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg issued an apology after Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp crashed.
Via a statement released on his Facebook account on Tuesday, October 5, Zuckerberg admitted the outage was an inconvenience as many people worldwide rely on their services.
He also announced the restoration of the services, whose outage made headline news across the world.
“Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger are coming back online now. Sorry for the disruption today. I know how much you rely on our services to stay connected with the people you care about,” he wrote.
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