WhatsApp ban in your hands? New feature will let you hit back

For all those people who have suffered at the hands of others on WhatsApp, there is finally some light at the end of the long, depressing, tunnel. It has been revealed that the company will roll out a new WhatsApp feature that will enable users to report messages sent with a bad intent to the app within its platform. What is more, among the penalties is the slapping of a WhatsApp ban on the offending persons. This revelation comes close on the heels of reports about WhatsApp app bringing a host of new features for users. For instance, WhatsApp has been working on a new interface for its group video and audio calls. We also know that WhatsApp is also planning to bring more controls to its video editing feature enabling users to mute a video and see its size and length. And now, word is that WhatsApp will enable users to report other people within its platform itself.

What WhatsApp Message Reporting feature enables: According to a report by WABetaInfo, the company has started rolling out a new WhatsApp Message Reporting feature on its Android and iOS-based beta apps. This new feature enables WhatsApp users to report messages containing falsified information to the company. The blog site says that now, when WhatsApp users receive a spam message from untrusted contacts, they can choose to report the chat. When they report a contact, the most recent five messages will automatically be forwarded to WhatsApp, so that the company can understand the context of the conversation. The penalty is quite severe - WhatsApp can even ban the user, if needed.

How to use WhatsApp Message Reporting feature: As of now, when WhatsApp users long press on a message they get various options such as Star, Reply, Forward, Copy and Delete that enable them to take specific action on the shared message. When users get this message, they will see an additional Report feature along with the above mentioned options. Tapping on the Report button opens a dialog box that has two options -- Report and Block and Report. As the name suggests, while the first option enables users to report the message and block the contact at the same time, the second option enables users to just report the selected message.

WhatsApp Message Reporting feature availability: WhatsApp’s upcoming Message Reporting feature is available on WhatsApp beta for iOS 2.21.190.12, WhatsApp beta for iOS 2.21.190.11 and WhatsApp beta for Android 2.21.20.1. So, if you are a beta user, you should be able to use this feature now. If not, you will have to wait for WhatsApp to roll out this feature as a stable update to be able to use it.