I can't really see how? It doesn't have any affordance and discoverability is rather low; but there's feedback and a modicum of discoverability. It's useful [to me].

Now, WhatsApp have a pull-down feature that starts a voice note or voice chat or something ... it's awful, if you scroll down in a chat it is really easy to trigger by accident.

They also have a big button at the bottom right to start some sort of recording. Were they trying to get people to start recordings by accident? Does that help them somehow?

My grandfather is continually unintentionally starting group voice chats because of that ridiculous design choice.

He has one going right now.