BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

New WhatsApp Bans—Are You At Risk? Check Names Of Your Groups Now

Following
This article is more than 4 years old.

Reports are starting to emerge claiming that WhatsApp is issuing outright bans for users on its platform that are members of groups with insensitive names that suggest illegal or malicious activity. The platform can’t view encrypted message content, but it can view group names and act accordingly. And so while the intent is to remove malicious content and actors from the site, others who use inappropriate or shocking names for groups as an attempt at humour now risk the same outcome.

You have been warned.

“I was permanently banned from WhatsApp,” complained one such user on Reddit, claiming that a member had changed the name of a university group to one suggestive of illegal activity. “We tried to contact support, but all we received are automatic responses that says we violated the rules. Obviously we did nothing wrong.”

Whether or not that is the case we have no way of knowing—that’s the negative side of encrypted messaging, that it can be a hiding place for all the worst kinds of online behaviour. And this is the primary criticism of end-to-end messaging encryption, the inability for security and law enforcement agencies—or the platforms themselves–to monitor messages for illegal or dangerous content. Such platforms “hamper our law enforcement agencies, and those of our allies, in their ability to identify and stop criminals abusing children, trafficking drugs, weapons and people, or terrorists plotting attacks,” U.K. Home Secretary Priti Patel warned in July.

“Our whole group of about 50 persons was permanently banned,” another user claims on Reddit, “because somebody thought it would be funny to scare the rest of us by changing the name of the group to a disgusting topic for less than 1 minute (as the name was changed back to normal almost immediately). It was noon when the name change happened, that same night, all of us woke up with the news that all our accounts were permanently banned.”

WhatsApp is (rightly) standing by their terms of service. Because how else are they meant to police an encrypted site. “We prohibit misuse of our Services, harmful conduct towards others, and violations of our Terms and policies.” The platform says it uses “automated systems to improve our ability to detect and remove abusive people and activity,” and that “we will take appropriate action by removing such people or activity or contacting law enforcement.” Facebook has been approached for any comments on this story and the practice of banning users for illegal or illicit WhatsApp Group names. Anything received will be added here.

There’s a serious quid pro quo here. If we want to maintain access to encrypted messaging platforms then we need to use those platforms responsibly. And so the lesson learned for users is to take care as to the naming of their groups—otherwise you risk a ban and will find it very difficult to argue your way back. The platform has no way of differentiating between poor humour and serious malicious intent.

Groups names that suggest child abuse, pornography, drug dealing, terrorism, violence or extremism are rightly being targeted. But human nature being what it is, members of messaging groups will likely continue to see the humor in using such terms to either prank other members or as a form of humor. And so here’s some sage advice for owners of such groups: Ensure that only “Admins” can change group names and details—you can easily change that setting, as seen below.

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn