WhatsApp is working on a private newsletter feature

Representative image.

Meta's Instant Messaging (IM) client, WhatsApp, is working on a feature that will allow users to read and share newsletters on the platform.

WABetaInfo found the "Newsletter" handle in the latest beta builds for Android, but it could also be a codename and is subject to change.

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As for the feature itself, it allows users to broadcast information to a select group of accounts, which could indicate something similar to a subscription system or mailing lists that newsletters on the web use.

Organisations and individual accounts will be able to send information to several people at once, and users will have the liberty of choosing which account they receive them from.

Interestingly, WABetaInfo found that the new feature didn't have end-to-end encryption yet, since, "the one-way and one-to-many design of the feature means that there is no practical privacy benefit of end-to-end encryption for users".

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As a tradeoff, WhatsApp will instead mask the phone numbers of accounts when they sign up to receive a newsletter.

Based on reading the code, the new feature will be a separate and optional section, that will be kept under the Status tab in the app. There are no signs of any ad-related plans in the code yet, and there are also no algorithmic recommendations implemented.

Users will have full control over who they follow, and nobody else will be able to see what newsletters they have signed up for.

WABetaInfo said they thought the feature was still in the early stages, and we have to wait a while before we see more.