WhatsApp is the world’s leading instant messenger and boasts the highest userbase of 2 billion users worldwide. Also, the Meta (previously known as Facebook Inc.) owned messaging platform provides payment services in some regions of the world. With the ability to communicate with 2 billion people and to send or receive money all under the same app, why is it necessary to consider quitting WhatsApp or moving to a better platform? Curios?
Read this crisp piece to know the top 5 disadvantages of WhatsApp and why you should consider quitting it.
Content Censorship
One of the major drawbacks of using WhatsApp is that the contents of the messages and media shared in the platform are totally discreet and free of any censorship. Unless the sender decides to warn you about the explicit nature of the content, you are at the risk of being exposed to it. While you can decide to overlook at this situation, however such a platform is also not completely safe for teenagers or underaged adults which might affect their psychology.
Unverified Information
While WhatsApp acts as the fastest platform to communicate messages, it is also to be noted how dangerous the same can be when fake messages and misinformation are being forwarded. The information in the messages are free of any kind of verification and hence is not necessarily be always true. The violent repercussions to WhatsApp forwarded misinformation are aplenty across the globe.
Editing sent messages
One of the major drawbacks of WhatsApp is that it does not allow you to edit a message. Once a message is sent, you cannot edit it, but only can delete it and send a new message. However, other popular messaging platforms such Telegram allow you to edit a sent message. This provides a handy comfort to users in case of long messages.
Note: You can check 5 things you can do on Telegram which you can’t on WhatsApp to know what else you can do on Telegram.
Visibility to others in groups
There are already a ton of discussions on the privacy concerns over Facebook and WhatsApp on the internet, we do not want to delve into it now. You can check our earlier article on the subject to know more about it.
Coming to the usage of WhatsApp, though there are certain permission controls to restrict unknown people to add you to groups, there is no control to hide yourself from a group. Everyone in the group can see you being a part of the group and can also reach out to you. This poses as a huge privacy risk of being exposed when you want to be discreet.
Visibility of your mobile number
This is the biggest reason why you should quit using WhatsApp. Since WhatsApp is based on your mobile number only, anyone on WhatsApp can almost view your mobile number. Any user who you happen to be with in a group can reach out to you in WhatsApp or may even be able to view your number and reach out to you in other platforms. At the moment, there is no way to hide your mobile number which totally disrespects the privacy of the users.
