WhatsApp’s recent introduction of ‘blue ticks’ – read receipts – which show the person you’re chatting with that you’ve read their message has been met with a mixture of mild pleasure, and outright terror.
Sure, some of us like to sit at our smartphones, waiting for the exact nanosecond someone reads our latest witticism, and anticipating the megalols that must be happening that instant at the other end of the line.
Some users were actually angry, as the feature meant they felt they had to respond- which bloggers such as Mark Cuban felt was a red rag to stalkers, creeps and weirdos.
WhatsApp ‘blue ticks’ mean you can’t ignore messages=creepers can creep exactly why @CyberDustApp doesn’t do this http://t.co/Y3uVwja5GZ
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) November 9, 2014
Unsurprisingly, WhatsApp has listened to the internet.
The new Beta version of the WhatsApp software for Android allows you to turn off the blue ticks – so no one has any idea whether you’ve seen or read the message.
‘Nope, sorry, just arrived in my Inbox – didn’t get a chance to have a look,’ you can say breezily, while they eye you with suspicion.
Similar functionality may well arrive in Whatsapp for other platforms shortly.