- by Annabelle Liang
- Business reporter
WhatsApp says it will allow users to edit messages, in a move you’ll see match a feature offered by competitors like Telegram and Signal.
The company says messages can be edited up to 15 minutes after they’re sent.
The instant messaging service is part of US tech giant Meta, which also owns Facebook and Instagram.
The feature will be available to the two billion WhatsApp users in the coming weeks. India is its largest market, with 487 million users.
“From correcting a simple misspelling to adding extra context to a message, we’re happy to give you more control over your conversations,” Messaging Service he said in a blog post on Monday.
She added, “All you have to do is long-press on the sent message and select ‘Edit’ from the menu for up to fifteen minutes after that.”
Edited messages will be marked as “edited,” so recipients know the content has changed.
However, it will not show how the message has been modified over time.
Steps to edit a message as shared by WhatsApp
WhatsApp’s announcement came after the feature was introduced by messaging services Telegram and Signal.
Editing functionality was introduced by the social networking platform Facebook nearly a decade ago.
Around that time, Facebook revealed that more than half of its users accessed the site via mobile phones, which are more prone to typing errors.
On Facebook, updates that have been modified are marked as modified. A history of edits is also available for users to view.
Last year, Elon Musk’s Twitter social media platform said it was giving paying subscribers the ability to edit their tweets.
Tweets can be modified multiple times in 30 minutes after posting.
“You should be able to participate in the conversation in a way that makes sense to you and we will continue to work on ways to make it feel easy to do so,” the platform added.