WhatsApp Allegedly Records Users And Raises Privacy Concerns, Elon Musk Says It "Cannot Be Trusted"

WhatsApp, a popular app for exchanging messages, is facing backlash for allegedly invading the privacy of its users. On May 6, a Twitter user named Foad Dabiri (@foaddabiri) shared a screenshot that showed the app was using the microphone to listen as he slept.

"WhatsApp has been using the microphone in the background, while I was asleep and since I woke up at 6AM (and that's just a part of the timeline!)," he tweets, "What's going on?"

The Tesla founder saw the post and proceeded to warn others about WhatsApp. "WhatsApp cannot be trusted," Musk writes.

When someone in the comment section mentioned that Meta/Facebook owns the app, Musk responded, "Yeah. Or that WhatsApp founders left Meta/Facebook in disgust, started #deletefacebook campaign & made major contributions to building Signal. What they learned about Facebook & changes to WhatsApp obviously disturbed them greatly."

In 2014, Meta purchased WhatsApp for $19 billion. Unfortunately, the partnership only led to changes that raised privacy concerns. According to ProPublica, messages sent on WhatsApp are not end-to-end encrypted, meaning messages aren't coded in a readable format and are unlocked only when messages reach the recipient. Instead, WhatsApp chats are mined and then shared with Meta.

Privacy isn't the only issue here. In 2018, TechCrunch reported that WhatsApp chat groups were being used to spread illegal child abuse content protected by the app's end-to-end encryption. Group names such as "child porn only no adv" and "child porn xvideos" were easily found on the group discovery app "Group Links For Whats" by Lisa Studio, writer Josh Constine found. Constine adds that Facebook's moderation staff, at the time, was estimated to be around 10,000 to 20,000 to crack down on election interference, yet they did not moderate the disturbing content found on WhatsApp.

It was announced yesterday that WhatsApp may disappear from the U.K. due to its end-to-end encryption. A Home Office spokesperson said, “We support strong encryption, but this cannot come at the cost of public safety. Tech companies have a moral duty to ensure they are not blinding themselves and law enforcement to the unprecedented levels of child sexual abuse on their platforms."

Conservative MP Damian Collins did not support a recent amendment introduced attempting to protect end-to-end encryption in the U.K. He further explains that if users access WhatsApp through a web browser, the app can collect data about websites visited before and after sending messages. In other words, WhatsApp seems to be mining an incredible about of data without users' knowledge, and who knows what Meta is doing with all of the information they've gathered?

The question is, if the United Kingdom becomes the first country to ban WhatsApp, is it possible others will follow suit?

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