One hoax that recently fooled many netizens was about the Whatsapp 'screenshot notification' feature. According to the fake news story, Whatsapp will notify you when someone takes a screenshot of your chat, just like in Snapchat. Calm yourself. This is not true.
A website called 8shit.net posted an article that said every time you take a screenshot of someone's chat, they will get a notification that you have done so. What everybody failed to notice is that the site was a prank site and the article was a work of fiction.
Everyone went berserk on social media and even seriously started debating if it was a good thing or a bad thing. What didn't help that they added in quotes a statement which says: "The functioning is simple, just like the blue tick: You will have the option activated by default. If it's checked, you'll be notified if someone screenshots your conversation, and others will be notified if you screenshot theirs. If it's unchecked, no one gets notified." The site attributed the comment to 'Jan Koum, the CEO of WhatsApp'.
What added fuel to the fire was a hint towards the scandals which put people on the precipice of moral dilemma. The website stated that Koum had further said: "It's not about the privacy of the person who screenshots the chat or the person who forwards the nude, it's about the privacy of the affected person, and we're gonna do it you like it or not."
However, Whatsapp has released no statements of such nature and it is highly unlikely that they are going to do so anytime in the future. There is, therefore, no reason to panic. Rather one should always check the fine print or the authenticity of an article before sharing it on social media and not add fuel to the fire.
