The technology-based messaging apps like Whatsapp Messenger, Telegram, Signal, Facebook and others are now obliged to bring in customization in the group chat feature on their respective platforms. A group of Indian activists on Friday said that the modifications should be made so that the users can no longer be added to group chats without express consent.
The letter signed by Software Freedom Law Centre and a few other civil society organizations and individuals read,”In the absence of a mechanism to prevent themselves from being added to groups that they would not like to participate in, users have no option but to manually exit the groups.”
The Indian activists sent an open letter to the CEOs of the messaging service providers including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Telegram Messenger CEO Pavel Durov among others. In the letter, they mentioned that currently, all the messaging platforms let users to be added to group chats without their approval, revealing their private information like phone numbers and profile pictures to the other group members.
The letter read, “This is a troubling state of affairs because users may be forcefully exposed to a range of subjectively undesirable content that they would never have signed up for otherwise, which can be particularly damaging, especially in situations where malicious actors attempt to intimidate, disparage, harass or harm individuals in any way.”
It is being said that this group chat feature can prove to be harmful in many cases. This feature can be used by evil-intentioned and mischievous people in highly offensive or disparaging way to harass people on a large-scale. Another drawback of the feature is that blocking any such users is worthless because, on group chats, even the blocked contacts can communicate with any group member. Such feature is a privacy concern as it shares the personal details of the users without their consent.
Thus, the Indian activist’s group with the help of other organizations has urged the messaging service providers to take immediate action against this complication. The group is trying to bring in other organizations and members of civil society around the world to lend their names and support to this letter so that the changes can be made as soon as possible.