WhatsApp backtracks on tiny change that infuriated users

WhatsApp has backtracked on a subtle design change that infuriated hundreds of users after the messaging service added capital letters to status updates in the app.

Users of the private messaging app were left variously “irritated”, “angry” and “annoyed” – and some claimed to be feeling “icky” – after the app, run by Facebook owner Meta, decided to capitalise the word “Online”.

For years, WhatsApp has displayed a status notice for users in the conversations in its app. These appear under a user’s profile picture and typically read “online” or “typing”, all in lowercase letters. Other common statuses read “tap here for contact info” or “last seen”. However, in recent days WhatsApp quietly altered the words, adding a more grammatically correct capital “O” or capital “T” to millions of users’ statuses.

People began to notice the minor alteration last week, but the change prompted outrage from users across social media on Tuesday.

Sam McAlister, the former BBC journalist notable for securing an interview with Prince Andrew and author of the book Scoops, said in a post on Twitter: “Has anyone else noticed that the ‘o’ in ‘online’ on WhatsApp has now been capitalised to ‘Online’... no idea why this is irritating me so much.”

Some users pointed out that although adding a capital letter to the digital status would be more grammatically conventional, the change still irked them.

The change also frustrated technologists. Sriram Krishnan, a London-based technology investor, said on Twitter: “Lots of folks are annoyed.”

Within hours, WhatsApp had started to reverse the changes. A spokesman confirmed: “This was just a small test, but it’s going back to normal now.”

Technology businesses typically make thousands of tiny design changes to their websites and apps every year, testing them out on small numbers of users to gauge the reaction – a process known as “A/B testing”.

Matt Navarra, a social media consultant and former government communications adviser, said Meta and WhatsApp were “obsessed with testing. Even the smallest, most subtle tweaks can increase the time spent using an app or alter user behaviour in other ways”.

“Some platform changes are often only seen by a very small percentage of users. Many tests get killed before ever reaching Meta’s nearly four billion users.”

These tests are often kept under wraps or go unnoticed by users before they are rolled out more widely.

Previous design changes by social media giants have frustrated users, although the blowback has rarely put them off using the apps entirely.

In 2006, when Facebook only had a few million users, it launched the now ubiquitous News Feed, which included a stream of updates from a person’s friends.

The change led to immediate uproar and threats to boycott the site over privacy concerns. However, Mark Zuckerberg pressed on with the change, which has remained a major feature of Facebook’s app and website.

In 2022, under threat from TikTok, Meta also made major changes to Instagram, adding more videos and changing its algorithm to serve more clips to users.

The alterations led to social media stars including Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian threatening to quit the app. The anger forced Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, to apologise and promise to roll back some of the new features.

But despite users’ protests, tech giants such as Meta will typically press ahead with changes if they believe they are what users want, based on the data gathered from their testing.