Groups are one of the most popular features in WhatsApp and at one point, they revealed that there are over 1 billion groups on the network.
However, the biggest problem about Groups is that you could be added by anyone into a Group without your consent. This meant that for the last decade, people had to deal with the idea that they were added into groups that they didn’t like, resulting in embarrassing or downright sneaky moves to leave the Group.
Well, WhatsApp had heard our pleas and started working on a way to control that. Back in February, WhatsApp was reported to be developing an option to control who adds to to a group.
This is now a reality. WhatsApp has released this feature to everyone as update version number 2.19.319.
To access the new feature, go to Settings > Account > Privacy > Groups. WhatsApp gives you three options of who can add you to groups: Everyone, My Contacts or My Contacts except..
If you set it to everyone, you will be added by anyone with your phone number. If you set it to ‘my contacts’, only your contacts will be able to add your number. If you set it to the third option, you can shut out specific contacts from adding you to groups.
If you enable this feature, group admins who can’t add you to a group will have the option of inviting you privately. Initially, it was said that these invitations last for 72 hours.
I believe the third option will become very popular as people will try to make their WhatsApp accounts more private than ever before. This will be a godsend to those people that have suffered in the hands of being added into groups that they do not want.
