WhatsApp to start showing ads to users in parts of messaging app
California, Jun 17 (AP): WhatsApp said Monday that users will start seeing ads in parts of the app, as owner Meta Platforms moves to cultivate a new revenue stream by tapping the billions of people that use the messaging service.
Advertisements will be shown only in the app's Updates tab, which is used by as many as 1.5 billion people each day. However, they won't appear where personal chats are located, developers said.
“The personal messaging experience on WhatsApp isn't changing, and personal messages, calls and statuses are end-to-end encrypted and cannot be used to show ads,” WhatsApp said in a blog post.
It's a big change for the company, whose founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton vowed to keep the platform free of ads when they created it in 2009.
Facebook purchased WhatsApp in 2014 and the pair left a few years later. Parent company Meta Platforms Inc. has long been trying to generate revenue from WhatsApp.
WhatsApp said ads will be targeted to users based on information like their age, the country or city where they're located, the language they're using, the channels they're following in the app, and how they're interacting with the ads they see.
WhatsApp said it won't use personal messages, calls and groups that a user is a member of to target ads to the user.
It's one of three advertising features that WhatsApp unveiled on Monday as it tries to monetise the app's user base. Channels will also be able to charge users a monthly fee for subscriptions so they can get exclusive updates. And business owners will be able to pay to promote their channel's visibility to new users.
Most of Meta's revenue comes from ads. In 2025, the Menlo Park, California-based company's revenue totalled USD 164.5 billion and USD 160.6 billion of it came from advertising.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
My detractors conspiring to blow me up with bomb: Chirag Paswan tells rally in Bihar's Munger
Munger (Bihar), Jul 19 (PTI): In a sensational claim, Union minister Chirag Paswan on Saturday told a rally in Bihar that a "conspiracy" to blow him up "with a bomb" has been hatched by his detractors, who have ceaselessly tried to "break" him.
The Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) president made the statement in Munger district, where he hurled several barbs at his estranged uncle Pashupati Kumar Paras, and Lalu Prasad's RJD with which the latter has aligned, without mentioning by name any of his opponents.
"Many people are upset with Chirag Paswan's 'Bihar First, Bihari First' slogan, which strikes at the roots of their caste politics. Such people had caused the state to sink in poverty and backwardness while in power and now, ahead of the Assembly polls, they are trying to fob people off with false promises", said the Hajipur MP, in remarks that may be seen as aimed at Prasad's younger son and heir apparent Tejashwi Yadav, who is heading the INDIA bloc charge in the state.
Paswan, who had ended up isolated in the Lok Janshakti Party founded by his late father Ram Vilas Paswan, as a result of a split engineered by Paras, also spoke of the days he had to spend in political wilderness until he was redeemed by the BJP, with an offer of alliance in Lok Sabha polls last year.
"There have always been attempts by Chirag Paswan's detractors to stop him. They split his party and, later, got him dragged out of his house, leaving him to fend for himself on the streets. But nothing could break Chirag Paswan", said the 43-year-old leader, who of late has been referring to himself in the third person at public meetings.
Paswan's uncle, after splitting the party, had landed a berth in the Narendra Modi government while the founder's son was forced to vacate the 12, Janpath bungalow in New Delhi which had for years served as the residence of the late leader and the office of the LJP.
The LJP has since ceased to exist and splinter groups headed by the nephew and the uncle, whose party is called Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party, have been recognised as separate political entities by the Election Commission.
Paras, who had defended the split in 2021, voicing disapproval of his nephew's revolt against the NDA in Assembly polls held a year earlier, ended up quitting the BJP-led coalition following the saffron party's decision to accommodate the latter.
He finally announced his exit from the NDA a few months ago and last week Tejashwi Yadav made it clear that Paras "has already been working as one of our allies" and would soon be formally inducted into the opposition coalition.
Paswan, after speaking at length about the failed attempts to "break him", said "now they have hatched a new conspiracy. They are now trying to blow me up with a bomb (bomb se uda denge)".
"But they forget that Chirag Paswan is a tiger's cub (sher ka beta). He does not know how to bend and it is impossible to scare him", said the Union minister.
Members of the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), when asked about their president's stunning claim, replied on condition of anonymity that "it may have been a reference to the FIR lodged recently against a social media troll. Chirag ji may have made use of it for rhetoric".
The allusion was to a police complaint lodged at cyber police station in Patna, by the party's chief spokesman Rajesh Kumar Bhatt, against an Instagram user who had threatened to blow up Paswan.
Although the police complaint spoke about "people afraid of Chirag Paswan's growing popularity", it made no mention of any particular party or individual. Nonetheless, the LJP(RV) had alleged on its social media handles that the Instagram user was "an RJD supporter".
VIDEO | Bihar: Addressing a public meeting in Munger, Union Minister Chirag Paswan (@iChiragPaswan) says, "It suits the opposition leaders to divide us based on caste and religion. They understand that if we, especially the youth of Bihar, come together, then not only Bihar, but… pic.twitter.com/AkIobDjO5j
— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) July 19, 2025
