Table of contents:
- What 3 methods does WhatsApp use to combat SPAM?
- WhatsApp works actively to protect users from SPAM, these are not the only measures
There are more than 1.5 billion people using WhatsApp, however, not everyone wants to say good morning and tell you what a great time they had this weekend. Thousands of bots and spammers try to bombard your inbox every day. However... how does WhatsApp manage SPAM? The company has a very important challenge, detect these accounts without reading the messages
As you well know, WhatsApp encrypts end-to-end messages, so it cannot read the conversations.However, WhatsApp ensures that every month it deletes more than 2 million accounts and all this thanks to its complex artificial intelligence algorithms. These accounts try to spread false hoaxes, virals and all kinds of "dangerous" information for the user Facebook knows it must fight this, and is actively working on it.
What 3 methods does WhatsApp use to combat SPAM?
As we mentioned, WhatsApp cannot read your messages to detect SPAM accounts. That's the main reason why you only have 3 different ways to tell if an account is SPAM, a bot, or some kind of non-human bot. WhatsApp is clear that its tool is designed to exchange private information, not for thousands of bots to bombard you every day.
What What WhatsApp does is control the user's actions, analyzing some data attached to the account, without the need to decrypt a single message.
Using registry information, a very important step
This is the first moment, or method, that WhatsApp uses to detect if an account is fake. Using the number, the algorithm in charge of controlling the registration uses basic information such as the IP, the operator and some other data to detect malicious accounts. In addition to that, it also is capable of knowing if a PC is trying to register accounts en masse WhatsApp ensures that 20% of bans are made at the time of opening a new account.
Detecting the number of messages sent by each user
Another of the key moments to combat SPAM is to pay attention to the activity of the accounts. Bots generally send a brutal amount of messages.In addition to that, these accounts are not usually "Writing..." at any time, as they send messages automatically. If an account sends 100 messages in 10 seconds, after 5 minutes of opening, it will be immediately terminated.
In addition to that, the algorithm in charge of controlling SPAM is also capable of detecting the sending of malicious links These links, marked as suspicious, they want to avoid embarrassing accidents that may occur. In these cases, it is even possible to leave a group and avoid being included in it again.
Through user reports
Lastly, WhatsApp also uses reports to detect suspicious accounts. However, WhatsApp has a very advanced mechanism that allows your friends to not ban you if they get angryWell, WhatsApp analyzes if the accounts that are reporting you have interacted with you days before this. In this case, a manual check could be performed.
WhatsApp works actively to protect users from SPAM, these are not the only measures
As you well know, the application is very clear that it must protect users from SPAM. In recent weeks, some changes have been made, such as the recent limit that does not allow forwarding messages to more than 5 contacts. It is even capable of searching for bot accounts in modded APKs for Android (unofficial WhatsApp clients).
The same thing happens in the Facebook application, since they must detect SPAM without reading the messages. Some governments ask Facebook (which owns WhatsApp and also Instagram) to reveal the origin of false messages and hoaxes, but that would require breaking an encryption that WhatsApp is not willing to violate.We love that WhatsApp takes your privacy seriously, with such a high level of users and without this control, the consequences could be devastating.
