Stop making these 10 #WhatsApp mistakes right now

WhatsApp might seem like another chat app but over the years it has turned into a full-fledged social media platform in itself. From sharing status messages to group chats and calls, WhatsApp can get a lot of things done. But the problem with WhatsApp is that there is no concept of sending friend requests first and the fact that almost anyone and everyone on your phone’s contact list can find you on WhatsApp, so things can be a bit tricky. Here are 10 mistakes that you should stop doing on WhatsApp right now.

Don’t welcome everyone to your WhatsApp account. Delete irrelevant people from your contact list or block them

Take some time out regularly to clean your contact list and delete phone numbers of people you are no longer in touch with. If you think that you may require their contact number sometime, block these irrelevant numbers on WhatsApp at least. There is little meaning for your ex-landlord or the maid who used to work at your house five year ago to find you on WhatsApp. Remember, almost everyone uses a smartphone in India and almost everyone uses WhatsApp.

Make sure that your profile photo on WhatsApp does not reveal too much about you

It’s a good idea to keep a simple profile photo. Make sure your profile photo does not reveal too much information about your family members. This is important because your WhatsApp profile photo can be seen by everyone on your contact list. However, there are three privacy options as to who can see your profile photo: Everyone (which means all WhatsApp users), My contacts (people on your contact list) and Nobody (this is as good as not adding any photo). But there is no option to hide your photo from select contacts.

Don’t forget to add ‘Two-step verification’ pin to secure your WhatsApp account

This will prevent you from being a victim of SIM swap fraud. Also, will not allow others to setup your WhatsApp account on another phone by stealing the OTP from you. Go to settings and add ‘two-step verification’ to prevent someone else from locking you out of your account and use your WhatsApp account on another device without your knowledge.

Don’t share your Status messages publicly with everyone on WhatsApp

Status messages are private and are meant to be shared with your friends, family members and definitely not with your newspaper wala, maid or cab driver. Be sure to use the privacy settings properly to filter out unnecessary people from seeing your status messages.

Don’t allow everyone to add you to WhatsApp Groups

There’s an option to restrict who can add you to group messages. The privacy settings are: Everyone (anyone on WhatsApp can add you to a group), My contacts (only people on your contact list can add you to groups) and My contacts except (this option lets you actually select whom can add you to a group). It’s always a good idea to not allow any random person to add you to any group chat.

Disable the option to automatically add all WhatsApp media files in your phone’s gallery
This is another critical setting you should be careful of. Remember all those WhatsApp photos consume your phone’s internal storage when they are saved in gallery. So, unless you explicitly want all those silly ‘good morning’ photographs from appearing in your gallery, disable this option in the settings menu.

Disable auto chat backup in Google Drive or iCloud. Instead of chat backups, exports specific chats
WhatsApp chat backups saved in iCloud or Google Drive are not encrypted. So, if some chats are important and needs to be saved, it’s a good idea to export them and save it securely somewhere else. Unnecessarily backing up all WhatsApp chats takes up storage and is often of little use.

Don’t share porn clips or hidden video clips of people on WhatsApp. This may land you in jail

Don’t spread unverified news, hate messages or rumours on sensitive topics on WhatsApp, unless you want to get arrested

The police have the authority to dig out your WhatsApp chats to know whether you played a role in sharing fake news to incite violence. So, unless you want to land in trouble, don’t spread unverified news or rumours on sensitive topics.