WhatsApp’s block revoke request to prevent users from misusing ‘delete for everyone’ feature

WhatsApp is fixing the loopholes that allowed some users to bypass "delete for everyone" feature on its platform. The feature allows users to delete texts for everyone within 7 minutes of its being sent. WhatsApp recently extended the time limit to roughly 68 minutes.

WhatsApp's update to "delete for everyone" comes after multiple reports of users being able to misuse the feature through unauthorised versions of WhatsApp. This allowed users to permanently delete messages dating back to 3 years. WhatsApp is fixing the problem with its new "block revoke request" feature that will help prevent users from misusing the "Delete for Everyone" feature.

According to a report by WABetaInfo, a fan site that tests new WhatsApp features early, in order to stop such bad users, the messaging platform has implemented the new feature.

"When the user deletes a message for everyone, WhatsApp sends to the recipient(s) a new message having the same ID of the message that the user wants to revoke," the post added.

Earlier, when a recipient received this particular message containing the revoke request, WhatsApp checked if the ID of the message was present in the database and if the original message was found, it directly deleted it without checking any other important information.

This feature had certain loopholes which was exploited by users on unauthorised WhatsApp versions. It allowed users to delete messages sent 3 years ago. With the new updated algorithm, WhatsApp will now delete only those messages which have been sent within 24 hours. Also, if the phone remains turned off for 24 hours the request will be invalid.