> I don't usually go in for conspiracy theories, but this one seems pretty clear-cut Ouch, this petard with which I have been hoisted is chafing awfully... Th

> I don't usually go in for conspiracy theories, but this one seems pretty clear-cut Ouch, this petard with which I have been hoisted is chafing awfully... The commenters who suggested reviewing my privacy settings were on the right track. At some point (most likely several years ago) I set everything to ‘Contacts Only’. Then, when I migrated to Signal as my primary messaging app I denied the WhatsApp app all permissions, including access to my Contacts. As anyone who has tried to use WhatsApp without letting it slurp everything can attest, the app then goes out of its way to be a pain in the ass, such as by showing all chat participants as phone numbers (even when the person has set their own name) and refusing to let you message anybody new. So it looks like WhatsApp decided that as nobody was my contact any more, nobody got to see my profile picture and ‘About’ text. I've now changed my privacy settings and can confirm that they are both appearing for others again.