If you do not want to get banned from WhatsApp, then don’t be part of a group that has a “suspicious” name. Over the past few weeks, there have been reports of users getting banned from WhatsApp permanently. However, investigations revealed that these users could have been banned from the messaging platform because they were part of a group that has a “malicious” name.
One of the earliest reports is from a Reddit user, Mowe11. According to him, a participant of his university’s group changed the group name to something illegal. After that, it didn’t take long for WhatsApp to ban the entire group. According to the user, WhatsApp did not just ban the group, it also banned all the members from using the messaging platform.
Another Reddit, FranciscoAlfaro, claims that his school group has about 100 participants. However, he woke up one morning and there was a permanent ban on all members. WhatsApp did not leave a reason for their ban.
Another report from PiTiXX, says that after his friend changed the group subject name to something malicious, all accounts that belong to the group were suspended. Furthermore, a report from Twitter said that she got banned for being in a group with “some illegal” name. In fact, she had to use another number to get access to WhatsApp.
Gizchina News of the week
WhatsApp Response
When users contacted WhatsApp to get the reason(s) for the ban, they got an automatic reply which says that they violated their Terms of Service. This means that if you are wrongly banned, there is absolutely nothing you can do and WhatsApp won’t offer any assistance.
Unfortunately, we do not know how WhatsApp detects groups with “suspicious” names. However, it appears to affect old groups with a lot of participants. That is if the group has a malicious name. Even if a member of the group changes the group name to a suspicious name, all participants get the ban.
This means that if you decide to be mischievous with your school’s WhatsApp group just for fun, you could get all the participants banned.
GizChina’s Recommendation
WhatsApp’s chats and calls are end-to-end encrypted thus they cannot see the content of the group. However, it sees the metadata (group date creation, group subject, group description, etc..). If you are a group admin, do not frequently temper with your group’s metadata. In addition, use the new Group Info Restriction feature, so only the admin will be able to change the group info.
If you have had this experience, feel free to share with us on the comment section