WhatsApp Tests Its Feature Of Sharing Posts To Facebook And Other Apps

The messaging app is testing its feature of allowing users to share their posts from WhatsApp status to other apps. From now on, people using the beta version of WhatsApp will see a sharing option below their status. This option’s role is to post users’ status directly to the Facebook story; moreover, it allows the status to be sent to another app such as Gmail, Google Photos, or Instagram. Like the feature of Instagram Stories, WhatsApp Status also allows users to post text, videos, and images on their profile within 24 hours before they disappear.

Though users can share their status directly to Facebook, it is said that the app is doing nothing to link users’ accounts on Facebook and WhatsApp. Instead, it uses Android and iOS data-sharing APIs like other apps, meaning that data will be transferred between two apps. Even if users’ data is shared to Instagram – another service owned by Facebook, the posts are not the same in Facebook without being linked, says the messaging app. Also, there is not an option to automatically share WhatsApp status to other services. The app wants users to be independent with this feature.

When the app was purchased by Facebook in 2014, the messaging app promised it would not share its user data with the social media giant and claimed it would operate autonomously and independently. Things changed 3 years ago as the app started sharing data with the social media giant. Since then, it was forced to stop its practice by German and French regulators: In 2017, it suffered a $122-million fine by the European Commission because regulators were misled about the extent of linking accounts before its acquisition.

Clearly, the new feature of status sharing does not share any data, which has made Facebook get troubles 2 years ago. However, as Facebook allows its three major services’ users to message together by using a technical backend, these such innocuous features can take a risk of intense scrutiny.

Being launched 2 years ago, WhatsApp Status’ users have grown up to 500 million per day.