WhatsApp Boosts Your Privacy: How to Silence Unknown Callers – CNET [CNET]

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The Meta-owned messaging app is leaning further into security and privacy.

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Corinne Reichert Senior Writer

Corinne Reichert (she/her) grew up in Sydney, Australia and moved to California in 2019. She holds degrees in law and communications, and currently oversees the CNET breaking news desk for the West Coast. Corinne covers everything from phones, social media and security to movies, politics, 5G and pop culture. In her spare time, she watches soccer games, F1 races and Disney movies.

WhatsApp has announced more privacy protections on the messaging app. You’ll now be able to silence calls from unknown numbers, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Tuesday, as well as using a “privacy checkup” feature to see every privacy option on the app.

Silence unknown callers will automatically prevent spam, scams and unknown calls from going through. They’ll still appear in your calls list, but won’t actively ring on your phone.

For added privacy, here’s how to lock your more intimate WhatsApp chats.

How to silence unknown callers on WhatsApp

Here’s how to use WhatsApp’s new privacy feature:

  1. Open WhatsApp on your mobile device.
  2. In the top right corner, click on the three vertical dots.
  3. Click Settings.
  4. Hit Privacy.
  5. Select Calls.
  6. Toggle on the option to Silence unknown callers.

How to use WhatsApp’s Privacy Checkup

If you want to walk through all your privacy selections one by one, here’s how:

  1. Open WhatsApp on your mobile device.
  2. In the top right corner, click on the three vertical dots.
  3. Click Settings.
  4. Hit Privacy.
  5. Select Privacy Checkup.
  6. You can then check who sees your last seen and online info, your profile photo, your About and your status, and turn on and off read receipts.
  7. Selecting Start checkup will take you through editing your privacy options in each category. 

Here are three other sneaky WhatsApp featureshow to integrate WhatsApp with a task management app and how to get WhatsApp on your desktop.

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