WhatsApp Pussy Cat? Today Fred and Jethro talk all about WhatsApp, the background, how it’s used, and what to look out for.
- What Is It?
- Who Built It?
- Brian Acton and Jan Koum, former Yahoo! employees, wrote the first version in 2009
- Facebook acquired WhatsApp in 2014 for $19 billion
- Who Is Using It?
- Lots and lots of people … Roughly 2 billion monthly users worldwide
- WhatsApp has users in 109 countries
- How Are People Using It?
- Group chats (up to 256 people)
- Broadcast feature (message to multiple people, reply just to sender)
- Video Calls (w/ filters)
- Text Messages
- Share Videos, Photos, and Audio Messages
- What Are the Risks Parents Should Consider?
- No real enforcement of 16+ age rating
- Potential contact from strangers (no verification of user identity)
- Multiplatform service (kids can move from device to device)
- Multiple tools to “hack” WhatsApp
- Disappearing Messages (Status Feature)
- Cyberbullying (particularly in group chats)
- Grooming
- Live Location
- Access to Inappropriate Content – It only takes a few seconds to find links to public WhatsApp groups with
- Hoaxes and Misinformation
- Some limits on forwarding messages to groups
- Malware (particularly on PCs and Macs)
- Sharing of data between WhatsApp and Facebook
- Multiple security breaches and software flaws
- Anecdotes and Headlines
- Resources
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