Summary
- Meta is adding new camera effects, stickers, and changes to message reactions in WhatsApp.
- They seem similar to features in competing apps like Discord and the iOS Messages app.
- Meta’s changes to content moderation may also impact WhatsApp in the future.
Meta is updating WhatsApp with some fun new ways to spice up your chats and make messaging more efficient. The popular messaging app will now have new camera effects, stickers, and a shortcut for reacting to messages.
WhatsApp is available on the web, desktop, and mobile, but the app’s newest features tend to hit smartphones first. The biggest change Meta has made to all of its messaging products in the last year was the integration of Meta AI for answering questions and generating images, so it’s nice to see new WhatsApp features that have nothing to do with talking to Large Language Models.
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Selfie stickers, camera effects, and convenient reactions
WhatsApp is adopting features from its competitors
Meta
It’s best to see these new WhatsApp features as both a porting over of things the app was already doing, and the adoption of features of Meta’s messaging competitors. For example, you can now pull up your commonly used message reactions just by double-tapping a message, just like you can in Discord. The addition of selfie stickers is in more or less the same vein. You can turn any selfie you take on your phone into a sticker just by tapping on the “create a sticker” icon and then tapping on the camera, according to Meta. That sounds similar to how you make stickers in the Messages app on iOS, doesn’t it?
Camera effects originate from someplace even closer to home. Meta added filters and backgrounds for video calls in October 2024, and now Meta is offering you the ability to add those 30 or so backgrounds, filters, and effects to any video or photo you send in a message.
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The company’s approach to moderation will also impact WhatsApp
These changes to WhatsApp are minor in the grand scheme of things, but they’re just a sliver of the changes Meta’s been making to the kinds of content it’s platforms will allow. When the company announced it was disbanding its third-party program for fact-checking, the company also changed what kinds of speech it allows.
On Instagram, Facebook, and Threads, language that would have previously been treated as hate speech is now allowed, according to Wired. The change isn’t as applicable on WhatsApp, where there aren’t “posts” in the traditional sense, but it wouldn’t be surprising if more formal changes came to what WhatsApp allows down the road.
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