WhatsApp Will Rollout Anti-Spam Features; Indian Users Face ‘Obsolete Error’ Issue!

WhatsApp, world’s most popular messaging app will now take on Truecaller’s anti-spam functionalities head-on.

As per reports emerging, WhatsApp will soon roll out their new, enhanced anti-spam features, which will empower the user to stop spam messages once for all.

In a related news, few Indian users of WhatsApp faced ‘Obsolete Error’ messages, and were unable to use the app.

We will try to understand why it happened.

WhatsApp’s Anti-Spam Focus Becomes Intensified

As of now, WhatsApp automatically blocks forwarded messages which have been forwarded more than 25 times.

But going forward, a new feature would be introduced which will empower the users to identify these spam messages, and block them as well, which will stop its circulation.

This new feature was first spotted by WABetaInfo, and as per preliminary reports, this new anti-spam feature would be introduced in the version 2.17.430.

In future, spam messages which have been forwarded more than 25 times will be labelled as “forwarded many times”, and this will alert the user about its spammy nature.

Besides, the user would be able to report the sender of the message and block them as well.

Earlier, WhatsApp had advised their users against opening such spam messages, and not to click on the links.

WhatsApp’s anti-spam advisory states:

“If you’ve received spam from a contact, delete the message and do not click on any links or provide personal information. Tell the contact that the message they sent includes spam and point them to this WhatsApp safety page.You can also send reports of spam to WhatsApp by contacting us from inside the app,”

Hoax messages and fake news articles would be soon blocked by WhatsApp as well. We are awaiting further details.

Indian Users Face ‘Obsolete Error’ Issue In WhatsApp

Meanwhile, in the last 48 hours, several Indian WhatsApp users have faced an ‘Obsolete Error’ message, wherein they were not able to login into their account and use any of the features.

Here is a tweet with the screenshot of the message:

When I woke up today morning and  opened whatsapp, it said The version became obsolete on 13 Jan 2018 and update the app. When I checked in Google play, it says app is updated. Then I re-installed the app, but same message is appearing. What is happening?#whatsappdown pic.twitter.com/STYMuFqwLE

— Rahul Rampure (@RahulRampure) January 13, 2018

When the users visited the Google Playstore to update the app, then they received the message that their app is already up to date.

This baffled the users, and they were unable to understand the issue.

WhatsApp had to issue a statement, that this was a bug, and they are working on it.

In their statement, WhatsApp said,

“On background, this is an issue that’s being fixed. It was a problem with how our app is distributed, which is not under our control.”

Hence, indirectly, WhatsApp blamed Google Play Services for this issue.

We will keep you updated as receive more information on this ongoing issue.