Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma has a suggestion for WhatsApp that may benefit you, and netizens love it
Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma on Monday gave an advice to WhatsApp that could benefit billions of users around the world who receive spam messages from various sources on a daily basis.
Addressing X, Vijay Shekhar Sharma appreciated WhatsApp’s recently introduced feature to automatically block messages from unknown numbers if they arrive at high volume.
Paytm CEO shared a screenshot of the new WhatsApp feature that was automatically applied to his number as he seemed to be receiving a large number of messages from unknown numbers.
Sharing the screenshot, Sharma wrote, “Thank you @whatsapp.”
But Meta had a suggestion for the messaging platform it owns.
“Can you block spam like this too? Both call and text. “I keep marking messages as spam to train the model,” he said.
He also said he doesn’t mind paying a monthly subscription for spam blocking.
What did netizens say?
Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s suggestion attracted many ideas from other X users.
“Blue ticks are cool. Red ticks for auto-blocked spam? Cooler,” one user said.
“If WhatsApp implements spam blocking for calls and messages, count me in for a subscription. Educational models require more than ‘mark as spam’ clicks; the real benefit is a game changer,” another said.
“I think we need an open whatsapp like emails, anyone can customize the functionality with their own code,” a third user said.
However, some people were not keen on the idea of a paid service.
One person said that WhatsApp should monitor those who send such spam messages and that consumers should not pay for spam protection.
“Shouldn’t this be part of their service? For someone to receive spam, it has to be sent by someone else. It’s a zero-sum game. The sender needs to be monitored, not the recipient. Having the consumer pay for spam protection is akin to blackmail and encourages the operator to buy more spam.”
Another commented, “If you want to train the model, that’s fine. But don’t give unnecessary ideas like monthly subscriptions. People are barely surviving anyway. Just because you took the investor’s money doesn’t mean everyone has it.”
WhatsApp’s new feature
WhatsApp recently introduced a new feature that can block unknown account messages if the option is turned on.
“WhatsApp will block messages from unknown accounts when they exceed high volume. During this period, your contacts can send you messages as usual. Once message rates return to normal, message blocking will stop,” WhatsApp says on its website.
If you receive a high amount of unknown messages, the platform may also ask you to turn on this feature. You have the freedom to turn the feature on or off.
You can turn this feature on or off by going to Settings and then Privacy.
Under Advanced, turn “Block unknown account messages” on or off.
