You may have come across the “Report” option while browsing inside the WhatsApp app, perhaps somewhat ambiguous for those not familiar with the world of forums and the internet, but certainly eye-catching because it appears highlighted in red. Therefore, it is normal for doubts to arise and to ask ourselves “what does reporting mean” and why it usually appears next to the block contact function.
It is normal that the frequency of this option has increased these days, especially with the wave of bots and fraudulent contacts that add us on WhatsApp to try to trick us with one of their scams, since both the “report” and “block” functions usually appear as suggestions when someone who is not in our contacts messages us.
Reporting on WhatsApp: to notify the company so it can take action
If we select and hold a WhatsApp message, several options will appear, including “Report”. Similarly, if we go into the contact options, we will also find that “Report” appears next to “Block”.
This feature is designed so that the messages you report, or the contact you report, reach WhatsApp’s security team, so that they will review either the reported message (or the last five, in the case of reporting a contact) and consequently take action.
This is, therefore, a useful feature that we can use in cases of harassment or, as we mentioned at the beginning, a clear example of an attempted scam. In this way, we will alert the developers that that person is using the app in a way that violates the application’s rules and, if necessary, they could remove the user so they cannot use the messaging service. This, of course, will depend on the number of “reports” they receive from users, or on the type of messages sent to the company.
WhatsApp may ban users
Remember that neither WhatsApp nor any organization can access the messages in our chats, as they are end-to-end encrypted, so only the messages that are reported are sent for review at the company’s offices (the last five if a user is reported, as we noted earlier).
Thus, if reports are justified and WhatsApp considers that the app has been used fraudulently, the reported user could see their phone number “banned” from the service, being expelled and unable to use the app again; even groups can end up being closed if several complaints are received. But beware: the opposite can also happen — if you go around reporting people on WhatsApp indiscriminately, the company may end up penalizing you for misuse of this feature.
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