Confusion about popular WhatsApp trick - has it been switched off?

The blue tick on WhatsApp shows whether the message has been read.

Until now, anyone who does not want others to know has been able to use tricks.

But does it still work?

Munich - Who likes to be monitored?

Many people disturb the function of the "blue tick" in the popular WhatsApp messenger service: This is displayed for a contact when they have read the message or listened to the voice memo.

So far there have been ways to get around this.

Although there was and still is the option to switch off the blue tick completely, you could no longer see for yourself whether contacts were already busy reading.

Those who did not want to do without this, but did not want to give their contacts this information, have so far been able to fall back on two workarounds: Exporting the voice messages or forwarding them - and then listening on another device.

T-online reports that the WhatsApp trick has been switched off - our test comes to a different conclusion

As

on Thursday, October 21, this no longer works: WhatsApp, which, like Instagram, belongs to Facebook, now shows the blue tick (or the symbol in the info function for a voice message "Heard").

As a result, WhatsApp would have switched off the trick.

We checked that on Monday, October 25th - and lo and behold: the workaround with forwarding a message still works.

The blue ticks appear next to the voice message (“seen”), but it is not marked as “heard”, although it was forwarded.

Perhaps WhatsApp will only switch the function off on some devices in a beta test?

So far there is nothing official about this from the messenger service.

WhatsApp: Airplane mode can bypass read receipts

Should the trick really be switched off, the users who do not want to be monitored by their contacts only have another, cumbersome, and probably unsatisfactory solution: Activate flight mode so that the app cannot send the check mark when the message is sent listens.

Unfortunately, the device then no longer has the Internet, and as soon as you reactivate it, the check mark appears.

(cg)