WhatsApp has become a way of life for most people who own a smartphone. The app has over 1 billion daily users and sends over 55 billion messages per day. Which is why it’s interesting that a single message is causing Android phones to hang.
This phenomenon appears as a prank message circulating on WhatsApp. The message challenges the user to touch a ‘black dot’ represented below the text. It states that doing so will cause the user’s WhatsApp to hang.
True enough, the user’s WhatsApp will definitely hang. At least, on Android it does. While this may sound alarming, the effect does not hold any long-term consequences.
Apparently, the secret behind this prank lies in the blank space after the black dot. The message actually also includes a string of additional characters which are invisible to WhatsApp.
Converting the message to HTML reveals an extremely long repetition of ‘&rlm:’. This is a control character that is meant to show that a piece of text has a different alignment than another text. Users will not be able to see this string, but tapping on the invisible text overwhelms the app and causes Android phones to hang.
As such, the message isn’t malicious and seems designed simply to annoy and entertain. If you do receive such a message, you do not have to worry.
(Source: India Times)
