WhatsApp Username Debate: Will Hiding Phone Numbers Reduce Or Fuel Frauds?

In late June, Meta announced a phased global rollout of usernames, allowing users to reserve a unique handle to eventually enable communication without sharing phone numbers

However, the IT ministry has issued a notice to Meta to suspend the rollout of the feature in India and explain how it plans to mitigate the risks it could introduce

While Meta argues that usernames will reduce phone-number harvesting, experts believe that phone numbers still remain "the strongest form of identifier"

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