Have you ever been in a WhatsApp group chat that is used for exactly the opposite of its initial purpose? Or one where the people involved just won’t… stop… talking… about things that are not relevant to the matter at hand. If you’re a parent with a kid in primary school, you might have seen that last one — far too many times.
Happily, now WhatsApp lets you create groups that will only allow admins to send messages to the group. It’s ideal for situations where one person, or a small group of them, need to get info out to a larger group without wanting the group at large to reply with semantics questions and GIFs about puppies. School notices and body corporate updates should be far cleaner affairs if everyone isn’t able to reply with inanities, don’t you think?
The feature has rolled out with the latest version of WhatsApp and should be live for just about everyone. In order to invoke your internet shroud of silence, a WhatApp group must be created as usual and, once your participants are involved, the group’s settings should be accessed. You can also apply the new feature to existing groups, letting you feel a little like an instant-messaging Darth Vader and “alter the deal further”.
Head to Group Info, and then to Group Settings. There are options for Edit group info and Send messages. Select Send messages, and select Only admins. Congratulations, you (and your admins) hold all the power in the group now. Until people leave, that is. You can’t make them stay — unless it’s a work-related thing or something. For extra points, you could make everyone except that one person who always takes it too far an admin and enjoy some group-based chat with extra blessed silence from the peanut gallery.
