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In October 2020, WhatsApp rolled out a feature allowing users to mute both individuals and group chats forever. In March 2024, Meta announced that WhatsApp would let third-party messaging services enable interoperability with WhatsApp, a requirement of the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA). Local users can text special numbers in the app to launch an in-app shopping process, where they can order groceries. In May 2022, WhatsApp launched its Cloud API services (now known as WhatsApp Business Platform) for larger businesses requiring features beyond the WhatsApp Business App. Facing criticism, WhatsApp postponed the update to May 15, 2021, and had no plans to limit functionality of users, nor nag users who did not approve the new terms.
The government of Uganda banned WhatsApp and Facebook, along with other social media platforms, to enforce a tax on the use of social media. Once again, the block was lifted following an appeal, after less than 24 hours. On May 2, 2016, mobile providers in Brazil were ordered to block WhatsApp for 72 hours for the service's second failure to cooperate with criminal court orders. On March 2, 2016, at dawn the next day, Dzodan was released because the Court of Appeal held that the arrest was disproportionate and unreasonable. In September 2017, security researchers reported to The New York Times that the WhatsApp service had been completely blocked in China. WhatsApp is owned by Meta, whose main social media service Facebook has been blocked in China since 2009.
Security and privacy
Microsoft Corporation is an American company that makes computer software and video games. Concerns were raised about Microsoft's licensing practices potentially locking customers into its services and its AI investments possibly sidestepping regulatory oversight. The probe scrutinized Microsoft's bundling of cloud services with products like Office and security tools, as well as its growing AI presence through its partnership with OpenAI. In May 2025, Microsoft issued an Aviator game unsigned statement confirming that these services had been made available to Israel, while denying that these tools were employed during the massacre of the people of Gaza.
On November 14, 2016, WhatsApp added video calling for users using Android, iPhone, and Windows Phone devices. WhatsApp Web is accessed through web.whatsapp.com and access is granted after the user scans their personal QR code through their mobile WhatsApp client. The company also announced plans to implement reactions, the ability for administrators to delete messages in groups and voice calls up to 32 participants. In October 2023, support for logging in to multiple (meaning two) accounts was added, allowing users to switch between different WhatsApp accounts in the same app.
At that point WhatsApp was adding about 25 million new users every month, or 833,000 active users per day. On June 13, 2013, WhatsApp announced that they had reached their new daily record by processing 27 billion messages. The organization reported a massive drop-off in traffic for the blocked services, though the country's government made no official statements about the block. The ban was prompted by concerns of US authorities potentially accessing user data for such apps because of the CLOUD Act. In December 2021, the Swiss army banned the use of WhatsApp and several other non-Swiss encrypted messaging services by army personnel. In July 2021, the Cuban government blocked access to several social media platforms, including WhatsApp, to curb the spread of information during the anti-government protests.
- Similar to the WhatsApp Web format, the app, which synchronises with a user’s mobile device, is available for download on the website.
- The choice of the name youtube.com led to problems for a similarly named website, utube.com.
- It was at this time that YouTube adopted the slogan “Broadcast Yourself”.The company experienced rapid growth.
- Usually, no more than half of the eligible videos have a pre-roll advertisement, due to a lack of interested advertisers.
While some users praised the move as a way to discourage trolls, others felt that hiding dislikes would make it harder for viewers to recognize clickbait or unhelpful videos and that other features already existed for creators to limit bullying. After testing earlier in 2021, YouTube removed public display of dislike counts on videos in November 2021, claiming the reason for the removal was, based on its internal research, that users often used the dislike feature as a form of cyberbullying and brigading. As of May 2019update, videos were being uploaded to the platform at a rate of more than 500 hours of content per minute, and as of mid-2024update, there were approximately 14.8 billion videos in total. By April 22, 2014, WhatsApp had over 500 million monthly active users, 700 million photos and 100 million videos were being shared daily, and the messaging system was handling more than 10 billion messages each day.
In the same month, WhatsApp began testing a feature to help users find out more information and context about information they receive to help combat misinformation. In December 2019, WhatsApp announced that a new update would lock out any Apple users who had not updated to iOS 9 or higher and Samsung, Huawei, Sony and Google users who had not updated to version 4.0 by February 1, 2020. Both airlines had previously launched customer services on the Facebook Messenger platform. WhatsApp also announced a forthcoming business platform to enable companies to provide customer service at scale, and airlines KLM and Aeroméxico announced their participation in the testing. On January 18, 2016, WhatsApp's co-founder Jan Koum announced that it would no longer charge users a $1 annual subscription fee, in an effort to remove a barrier faced by users without payment cards. By early January 2015, WhatsApp had 700 million monthly users and over 30 billion messages every day.
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Bill Gates and Paul Allen started the company in 1975. Subsequently, two employees interrupted AI executive Mustafa Suleyman at a speaking event on April 4, 2025, in protest at the company's support of Israel. The employees, part of the group "No Azure for Apartheid", sought to address the company's involvement in the Israeli government's use of its technology. The company has a history of antitrust battles in the U.S. and Europe, with over €2 billion in EU fines previously imposed for similar abuses. Despite Microsoft's efforts to avoid deeper scrutiny, including unbundling Teams, regulators remained unconvinced.
In the United States as of November 2020, and June 2021 worldwide, YouTube reserves the right to monetize any video on the platform, even if their uploader is not a member of the YouTube Partner Program. A YouTube spokesperson stated that while the policy itself was not new, the service had "improved the notification and appeal process to ensure better communication to our creators". DeFranco argued that not being able to earn advertising revenue on such videos was "censorship by a different name". The move was seen as an attempt to ensure that videos being monetized did not lead to controversy, but was criticized for penalizing smaller YouTube channels.
In November 2020, UPI payments via WhatsApp were initially restricted to 20 million users, and to 100 million users in April 2022, and became generally available to everyone in August 2022. The application can store encrypted copies of the chat messages onto the SD card, but chat messages are also stored unencrypted in the SQLite database file "msgstore.db". The feature has to be turned on by the user and provides the option to encrypt the backup either with a password or a 64-digit encryption key. According to a white paper that was released along with the announcement, WhatsApp messages are encrypted with the Signal Protocol. On November 18, 2014, Open Whisper Systems announced a partnership with WhatsApp to provide end-to-end encryption by incorporating the encryption protocol used in Signal into each WhatsApp client platform. WhatsApp automatically compares all the phone numbers from the device's address book with its central database of WhatsApp users to automatically add contacts to the user's WhatsApp contact list.
On May 30, 2025, it was reported that Microsoft's Russian division would be preparing to file for bankruptcy, days after President Vladimir Putin stated that foreign services providers should be throttled in Russia to make way for domestic software, which included Microsoft. While experts regarded these changes as improvements, they advised caution, with some recommending further testing before users opted in. Initially criticized for taking regular screenshots without user consent, Recall was changed to an opt-in feature instead of being default on. Despite CrowdStrike's CEO George Kurtz clarifying that the issue was not a cyberattack, the incident had widespread consequences, leading to delays in air travel, financial transactions, and medical services globally. On July 19, 2024, a global IT outage impacted Microsoft services, affecting businesses, airlines, and financial institutions worldwide. In June 2024, Microsoft announced it would be laying off 1,000 employees from the company's mixed reality and Azure cloud computing divisions.
Consequently, in February 2011 Microsoft released a corporate bond amounting to $2.25 billion with relatively low borrowing rates compared to government bonds. Though the company had subsequent increases in dividend payouts, the price of Microsoft's stock remained steady for years. On March 13, 2020, Gates announced that he is leaving the board of directors of Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway to focus more on his philanthropic efforts. The company is run by a board of directors made up of mostly company outsiders, as is customary for publicly traded companies. In April 2019, Microsoft became the third U.S. public company to be valued at over $1 trillion.b As of 2024update, Microsoft has the third-highest global brand valuation. In 2018, Microsoft became the most valuable publicly traded company in the world, a position it has repeatedly traded with Apple in the years since.
On November 10, 2016, WhatsApp launched a beta version of two-factor authentication for Android users, which allowed them to use their email addresses for further protection. Previously between March 2016 and May 2017, only limited file types categorised as images (JPG, PNG, GIF), videos (MP4, AVI), and documents (CSV, DOC/DOCX, PDF, PPT/PPTX, RTF, TXT, XLS/XLSX), were allowed to be shared for file attachments. In March 2012, WhatsApp improved its location-sharing function, allowing users to share not only their location, but also the location of places, such as restaurants or hotels. Visual effects also became available, adding visual filters to a user's video feed. In December 2023, WhatsApp's "View Once" feature expanded to include voice messages. Later in September 2018, WhatsApp introduced group audio and video call features.
