Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma
Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma on Monday offered advice to WhatsApp that could benefit billions of users worldwide who receive spam messages on a daily basis from various sources.
WhatsApp’s new feature
WhatsApp has recently rolled out a new feature where one can block unknown account messages if the option is turned on.
“WhatsApp will block messages from unknown accounts when they exceed a high volume. During this period, your contacts can message you as usual. Message blocking stops after message rates return to normal,” WhatsApp says on its website.
On Monday, Sharma took to social-platform X (formerly Twitter) to applaud WhatsApp’s recently introduced automation: the app now detects when a high volume of messages is incoming from unknown numbers and automatically blocks them. He shared a screenshot showing that the feature had been triggered on his own number, thanking WhatsApp for the update.
But the Paytm chief didn’t stop at praise he offered a user-centric suggestion: he asked WhatsApp to extend the automatic blocking capability beyond messages to include incoming spam calls. “Can you block spams also like this? Call/messages both.” he wrote. He noted that he repeatedly marks unsolicited messages as spam in an effort to “train the model”.
Sharma also floated the idea that users might even be willing to pay a nominal monthly subscription for enhanced spam‐blocking services. His proposal triggered a lively conversation online: some users welcomed the idea of “red ticks” to mark blocked spam (analogous to the blue ticks of delivery/reads), while others took issue with charging users for what they felt should be a platform’s responsibility.
For WhatsApp users, especially in India where spam calls and messages are persistent nuisances, Sharma’s suggestion underscores the demand for more robust protection. The feature WhatsApp currently offers blocking unknown account messages when they exceed a high volume is accessible via Settings → Privacy → Advanced → “Block unknown account messages” which the company says kicks in automatically when thresholds are exceeded.
For now, users can enable this option themselves for greater protection. If WhatsApp does take up Sharma’s call to include calls, it could mark a meaningful improvement in reducing unsolicited interruptions.