WASHINGTON : The Meta-owned app, known for prioritizing privacy and minimal commercial interference, will begin rolling out three new monetization tools exclusively within its Updates tab, which includes the Channels and Status features. These changes will not affect personal messaging, the company assured.
The new features include:
Paid channel subscriptions
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Promoted channels in the Discovery directory
Advertisements within Status — WhatsApp’s version of Instagram Stories
These additions represent the most direct effort yet by Meta to monetize WhatsApp’s massive global user base, which now exceeds two billion monthly active users. Until now, WhatsApp’s ad presence was limited to business message promotions for opted-in users and small-scale ad tests in the Status feature.
Nikila Srinivasan, Vice President of Product Management at Meta stressed that personal messages, calls, and statuses will remain end-to-end encrypted and protected from ad targeting.
Meta reaffirmed that no user phone numbers, personal messages, or group data would be shared with advertisers, and that users who prefer a completely private experience can disable the Updates tab in their settings.
The announcement comes just a year after WhatsApp’s leadership denied plans for major advertising. Analysts have long speculated Meta would eventually seek to tap into WhatsApp’s high engagement and scale.
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