WhatsApp rolling out 31-people group calling feature on Android

Meta-owned WhatsApp is reportedly rolling out a feature to initiate group calls with up to 31 participants, along with minor improvements to the calls tab on Android, and it is available to some beta testers. WhatsApp has made some minor changes to the calls tab. Call links, in particular, are no longer mentioned on this screen, which now only states that it is possible to call one or more contacts, according to WABetaInfo. In addition, the floating action button was updated with a plus icon.

According to the report, the chatting platform already allowed group calls of up to 32 participants in the past updates, but users initially had a selection limit of 15 contacts when starting such a call. With this update, users can now immediately begin large group calls by selecting up to 32 people, including the caller who initiated the call, removing the previous restriction that could appear restrictive in some situations and cause user confusion. The feature to initiate group calls with up to 31 participants, along with minor improvements to the calls tab, is available to a limited number of beta testers and will roll out to even more people over the coming weeks, the report said.

Meanwhile, WhatsApp is reportedly rolling out an ‘automatic security code verification’ feature for end-to-end encryption to a limited number of beta testers on Android. With this feature, the app will try to automatically verify if messages are end-to-end encryption without requiring any user intervention. This process will be called “Key Transparency”, enhancing the overall security and privacy of users’ conversations by checking if they are using a secure connection.

In other news, Meta on Friday refuted a report which claimed that the Mark Zuckerberg-run company is planning to put ads in WhatsApp, which has over 2 billion users globally, including more than 500 million in India alone. “We aren’t doing this (exploring ads). Also, it looks like you misspelt Brian’s (WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton) name,” Will Cathcart, head of WhatsApp, posted on X.

— Written with inputs from IANS