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Journalism of Courage
Meta has been introducing a lot of new features on WhatsApp lately. While most of these features make WhatsApp a unique instant cross-platform messaging and calling app, the newly rolled-out channels feature on WhatsApp has received a lot of criticism for turning WhatsApp into yet another social media platform.
The new WhatsApp Channels feature lets users follow their favourite celebrities and even news portals to get the latest updates without sharing personal details like phone numbers. However, right now, there is no direct way to opt out of this, and Meta is currently rolling out this feature for both Android and iOS devices.
If you are someone who does not see much use for the WhatsApp channels feature, here is how you can hide this feature to make WhatsApp less distracting.
If you haven’t updated WhatsApp yet, then you can continue to use an older version of WhatsApp without the channels feature. On Android, if you have already updated the app, then you can also back up the chats, uninstall the newer version, and install the older version. Just make sure that you are downloading the APK from a legitimate source.
If you don’t wish to reinstall an older version of WhatsApp, there is another workaround to hide channels. However, do note that this does not remove the feature; it just hides it within the Updates tab on WhatsApp.
Open WhatsApp > Click on Updates > Select View Updates
This will push the channels down to the bottom of the page. If you have enough status updates on WhatsApp, this will hide the channels. Do note that closing and reopening WhatsApp will undo this setting, and the process has to be repeated every time to hide channels on WhatsApp.
