1.2.5 Technical messages

WhatsApp sometimes generates messages when something happens in a chat. If, for example, a user leaves a group, the message can be Peter left or Peter hat die Gruppe verlassen. In order to get one wording for these messages, we encoded them, e.g. actionQuserOUT.

This results in the following values for the field msg_type:

• actionQiconDEL the avatar was deleted
• actionQiconUPD the avatar was changed
• actionQsubjUPD the name of a group was updated
• actionQuerIN a speaker was added to a group
• actionQuserOUT a speaker was removed or removed themselves
• actionQuserREM Meta text about a speaker in a group chat

Other options in the field msg_type are:

• content A message with text written by a communication partner
• encrypted A message that was encrypted
• media A message that contained a media file such as a sound file, an image or a video
• no consent A message written by a communication partner who did not give permission for his texts to be used.

Since most of these technical messages do not contain any text, they are also marked in the field tok as follows:

• mediaQremoved for media that we removed
• emptyQmsg an empty message
• encryptedQmsg some informants encrypted their messages
• systemQspk53 says very generally that speaker 53 did something from the first bullet list above, e.g. leave a group.