THIS IS A TOTAL GAME CHANGER SURELY

[isitanoaktree]

Whatsapp has now provided an update whereby users can hide their 'online' status. This is honestly brilliant and a long time coming.

I have just breathed an audible sigh of relief knowing that being seen online won't cause issues for me in the future now.

What does this mean though for cheating spouses and partners who were caught out, in part, because they were seen online at odd hours or only ever online when they were locked in the bathroom? Interesting one...

Plays right into the hands of philanderers doesn't it...

There will probably be a stream of others along in the morning to double down on the whole 'I HAVE HIDDEN MY ONLINE STATUS SINCE BEFORE TELEGRAMS AND PAGERS WERE EVEN A THING DUHHHH'

So we can look forward to that barrage of fuckery too

I'm on the sofa, glasses in the bedroom and I'm opposite another block of apartments. Not much chance of me seeing that.

I was trying to make sense of exactly why you were wondering if your factual statement was reasonable or not. 😂 I’m dying from laughter!

No there isn't, I'm afraid. The next lunar eclipse is on Tuesday at 7:02am and won't be visible from the UK. All you are seeing at the moment is the phase of the moon - waxing gibbous, which means we can see around 3/4 of the disc.

Dying, is it?

Yes. Evidently.

That was me impersonating the idiocy of the posters who have hurled fiction masquerading as fact into this thread.

OP I think you will find a pp was referring to the whole in the handle of the pasta strainer that is to measure how much spaghetti. Maybe you know this? I can't tell who is being sarcastic as don't use whatsapp!

I looked out of the window like an idiot too.

Wtf op that is well old news it's always been a thing.

Long story had a ‘friend’ she didn’t want to reply too but had been on messaging me so that means the other person could see she was online at the time and ignoring her. She will like this new feature now can ignore without being caught!

It's not new because had this feature for at least 6 months..

FFS hole not whole

FGS It's not on the handle its in the middle of the spoon. I have Covid. Ignore me.

So this must be the place (cue Talking Heads music) to ask a silly question

if I archive chats, if someone posts on that chat, will I still see their post?
Thanks.

That all depends on your settings.

You can change your settings so that when someone responds to a message in a chat that you have previously archived then no it will not move the chat window back into your normal WhatsApp 'inbox', but you can also have the settings so that you will be alerted to a new message from an archived chat because it will be moved back into the 'inbox'.

If you regularly check your archive folder then you wouldn't miss the message anyway as it will still be there waiting for you. It won't disappear entirely.

I realise I have not explained this super concisely or anything so I hope it makes sense. 1.14am vibes and all.

Wrong. But clearly you know that and you are just joking.

Thanks OP
I will try that in the morning!

Fingers crossed. Meanwhile, I’ve been using a workaround to hide my online status. I put my phone into airplane mode (turn off both data and wifi), then open WhatsApp, type my response, then press send, then quickly exit WhatsApp and switch off airplane mode.
It works, but you can’t get new messages in airplane mode so it’s a bit annoying switching it off and on, lagging in the replies etc. But it’s not as bad as it sounds, I’ve gotten very fast at it, and I’m the one choosing privacy over convenience, I guess.

OP, you are talking absolute crap, I've been using WhatsApp to measure spaghetti for years.

FFS.

Awesome. Have just changed my settings.

I'm conflicted about this update. I'm one of many who have caught out a cheating (ex)partner by seeing them online at weird hours/sneakily sending messages etc.
Updates like these along with things like disappearing messages really do give people a much better chance of getting away with cheating. My ex had a phone that you could run a second hidden version of apps on. Surely there are very few legitimate reasons to need to have a function like that.

As someone who doesn't have friends and has kids too young for school related pestering, the update doesn't yet make much of a difference to me.

I did discover a few years ago that my dad uses my last seen status to pointlessly worry himself. I didn't answer my house phone (which I almost never answer anyway) so he checked my WhatsApp status and because I hadn't been online for a couple of hours - yes, only a couple of hours, despite my lack of friends meaning I'm rarely on there - so he let himself into my house in a panic. I was in a new relationship with my DP and we were having sex and got disturbed by my dad shouting my name clearly in a panic. It was beyond awkward and I eventually managed to yell 'I'm fine thanks' and waited until I heard him leave. It was never mentioned again and he doesn't have a key to my new house! I have a feeling that if I use the new setting he'd end up having a heart attack from the worry of not being able to stalk me 😄.

I'm flummoxed by how much people seem to want to keep an eye on the online status of others.

My god, how old are you. Who cares if a message has been “seen” or not.

🤔 PP seem to be blissfully unaware of the pitfalls of WA “etiquette”. Sigh. I recently got added to a WA wedding group of an old friend - literally - who I haven’t seen in over 10 years. I kind of shuffled my feet when he asked to add me, since I won’t be attending the wedding, but he overrode that in his usual way and then it just blew up
my phone (usually posts from him) Obvs I muted it. But it became apparent that when he saw me ‘online’, since WA is my main form of communication locally, he would shoot something else off in my direction ! It was exhausting (and only been a week) So yay to the new setting, and thank you OP for a very entertaining (tho’ I get your frustration) thread 🧵 I call Classics !!
@PissedOffNeighbour22 I totally understand that ambiguity re cheaters/potential cheaters and it must be awful as this gives them more wriggle room - but the episode with your dad did make me chuckle 🤭

Wow. This baffles me.
Delete the app - that's game changing. No more anxiety of being 'seen', cheating, etc etc..
I downloaded it once for a work thing, left that job and never used it since.