“Send photos and videos that can only be viewed once,” a pop-up introducing the new feature in the latest beta on iPhone announces, “For more privacy, your photo or video will disappear from the chat after the recipient opens it once. Remember, people can always take screenshots.”
Snapchat, which pioneered this type of ephemeral messaging, sends the sender a warning when the recipient has taken a screenshot of a temporary picture within its app. It seems WhatsApp won’t offer the same protection, but it’s nice that it’s warning users about the possibility that their vanishing pictures and videos don’t disappear as completely as they’d like.
WhatsApp has really pushed its privacy features in recent months. In a new advertising campaign that spans print media, online, and television commercials, the Facebook-owned platform is highlighting its end-to-end encryption. We’ll have to see whether the ability to send vanishing messages makes it into a future advert.
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