If you have been part of WhatsApp groups with a lot of members, there is always the possibility of chaos when an unwanted person gets the invitation link to that group and starts spamming unrelated content to what the group was intended for. To address this and give more power to WhatsApp admins, WABetaInfo reports that admins will now be able to approve or reject a user’s request to join the group even if the user is using the group’s invitation link.
When the feature is turned on by the admin, users will get a message in the group chat informing them that new participants will have to seek approval from the admin before they are able to send and receive messages in the group.
If you are an admin and want to try it out on your group, head over to the group’s settings. If you are running the latest stable build of the app, you will see a new option, ‘Approve New Participants’. Turn it on. Should you not see the option and are running the latest version of the app, give it a few more days.
If you run more than a single group, you will be able to turn the feature on and leave it off in others, depending on your preference. Turning it on in one group does not automatically turn it on for all the other groups that you run, which is a good thing as different groups require different moderation techniques
While it is certainly a small change, it has the potential to massively improve the quality of discussions as users are vetted before being allowed into the group which in theory should reduce the number of spam messages being sent not to mention those users who join as many WhatsApp groups as possible to promote their businesses.
