The Central Criminal Police has told what kind of footage is being distributed in Whatsapp groups that are not suitable for children. The default setting of the Whatsapp application allows groups to swell to large sizes. Here’s how to turn it off.
The police have given more information about Whatsapp groups that are harmful to children. It urges guardians to check the default settings of the Whatsapp application on the child’s or young person’s phone. Jenni Gästgivar / All Over Press
On Thursday, we told about a group called “Finland’s largest Whatsapp group” that came to the attention of the Itä-Uusimaa police department in the messaging application Whatsapp.
According to the police, hundreds of children belong to the group, but the content shared there is anything but suitable for children.
The Central Criminal Police said on Friday that there are several similar groups. It says that it has come across similar groups in several localities.
– The clear purpose of the message groups has been to grow the groups as large as possible. The groups can have up to hundreds of users who don’t know each other, the central criminal police states in its announcement.
– The messages have included pornographic and violent material as well as sexual abuse material targeting children, it continued.
Change this setting in Whatsapp
According to the Central Criminal Police, the default setting of the Whatsapp application enables groups to swell to enormous sizes. In the application, you can also add people you don’t know to groups, unless this setting has been changed separately.
– We urge parents to check the settings of the Whatsapp message application on children’s and young people’s phones, that unknown persons cannot add their children to message groups whose content may be harmful, crime police constable Aleksi Karjalainen of the central criminal police states in the bulletin.
The setting can be changed from within the Whatsapp application by going to the path Settings > Privacy > Groups and changing the setting Who can add me to groups. The default setting is All.
– The safest way is to adjust the settings so that only your own contact information can add the user to a group, says Karjalainen.
Source: Central Criminal Police