Most people are on WhatsApp thanks to its quick and free messaging service.
You can customise your profile picture and the background. What more could you possibly want? But now users are worrying about a “dangerous” new feature after the women behind the Sisters In The City podcast posted about it on the @clipsnbinge TikTok.
The women were discussing a “secret” way of messaging people, called “locked chats” which apparently men had decided “not to tell girls” about, so they could continue to use the messaging service in a way without getting caught.
“There’s this whole feature on WhatsApp yeah that you can lock a chat and you’ll never find it unless you put a code into your WhatsApp,” one of the women explained.
She said it was completely “hidden” – and it wouldn’t come up if you pull the screen down above the archive section.
“Your code can be for example three hearts,” she said. “And unless you put three hearts into like you know when you’re searching for previous chats […] that’s the only time the hidden chats come up.”
She then pointed out “someone could cheat on you and you could absolutely never know” which will leave many leaping for their partner’s phones – but there’s no point, as there’s “no way of knowing if they have locked chats”.
WhatsApp’s help centre explains: “Any chats you have locked will be kept separate from your other chats in a Locked Chats folder. In order to read or send messages, you’ll need to unlock your chats using device authentication, such as your phone passcode, Face ID, fingerprint, or with a secret code that you can set up.”
The only way to see this is if you forget the code and you can “clear everything” – but if you were snooping on your partner’s phone, you’d never know if they’d had any locked chats because you wouldn’t be able to see them to protect the privacy of the owner of the phone.
The woman on the video said she was glad that she wasn’t in a relationship right now, because knowing this about locked chats would’ve driven her “insane”, and she would’ve had to confront a partner and ask whether he was messaging other women on the sly.
“There’s just no way of knowing,” she reiterated in shock, saying there shouldn’t be features like this to “harbour this unfaithfulness”. She fumed: “What other reason is there to have locked chats?”
“That’s how common cheating has become,” one woman claimed. Someone suggested people worried their partner is playing away should “check their recent emojis” to get confirmation.
Another penned: “A way to find out if they have a locked hidden chats… put a random chat of theirs into locked chat. If the locked chat option appears above archived then they don’t, if it doesn’t then they have it. Only downside, unless they put the code in, you won’t know what’s in there but if they have it that’s all you need to know.”
Someone shared it could be a good feature though, writing: “Or it’s a good feature for victims in abusive relationships to keep contact with people away from abusive partner finding out.”
A spokesperson for WhatsApp said they are always “trying to find new ways to help keep your messages private and secure”. They provide more context to the feature here.
