{"id":1018317,"date":"2026-07-02T08:06:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T02:36:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/?p=1018317"},"modified":"2026-07-02T08:12:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T02:42:31","slug":"whatsapp-usernames-potential-disaster-or-digital-land-grabbing-vir-das-ankur-warikoo-and-others-cant-stop-wondering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/2026\/07\/02\/whatsapp-usernames-potential-disaster-or-digital-land-grabbing-vir-das-ankur-warikoo-and-others-cant-stop-wondering\/","title":{"rendered":"WhatsApp usernames potential disaster or digital land grabbing? Vir Das, Ankur Warikoo and others can\u2019t stop wondering"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>WhatsApp is bringing usernames as a new way to connect online, and so far, it has got the internet divided. While some are welcoming WhatsApp\u2019s move from solely relying on phone numbers as the way to reach out to new users, others are questioning the privacy aspects, leading to a wave of debates among top Indian creators and general users. From comedian Vir Das to entrepreneur Ankur Warikoo, a lot of people have spoken on WhatsApp usernames feature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WhatsApp is bringing usernames as a new way to connect online, and so far, it has got the internet divided. While some are welcoming WhatsApp\u2019s move from solely relying on phone numbers as the way to reach out to new users, others are questioning the privacy aspects, leading to a wave of debates among top Indian creators and general users. From comedian Vir Das to entrepreneur Ankur Warikoo, a lot of people have spoken on WhatsApp usernames feature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,64,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1018317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newspapers","category-telecom-the-financial-express","category-the-financial-express"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1018317"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1018321,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018317\/revisions\/1018321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1018317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1018317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1018317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}