A hot potato: Elon Musk is in the middle of a public fight with WhatsApp on his X platform, claiming that the messaging service sucks up user data daily and uses it for targeted advertising. WhatsApp boss Will Cathcart has responded by claiming this is untrue, leading to arguments from all sides.
The situation began on the weekend when Musk replied to a post that claimed, among other things, that WhatsApp (Windows/Android/iOS) exports user data nightly, which is then analyzed and used for targeted advertising, “making users the product, not the customer.”
WhatsApp exports your user data every night.
Some people still think it is secure. https://t.co/LxDs7t7HSv
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 25, 2024
Musk wrote that “WhatsApp exports your user data every night. Some people still think it is secure.”
WhatsApp owner Meta doesn’t have the best reputation when it comes to privacy, hence why it was ranked 97 out of 100 on the list of reputable companies. But WhatsApp boss Will Cathcart denied the claims.
“Many have said this already, but worth repeating: this is not correct,” Cathcart wrote in a reply to Musk. “We take security seriously and that’s why we end-to-end encrypt your messages. They don’t get sent to us every night or exported to us.”
Many have said this already, but worth repeating: this is not correct.
We take security seriously and that’s why we end-to-end encrypt your messages. They don’t get sent to us every night or exported to us.
If you do want to backup your messages, you can use your cloud provider… https://t.co/YkI2UEuLUJ
– Will Cathcart (@wcathcart) May 27, 2024
On the side of Cathcart is Professor Yann LeCun, one of the three Godfathers of AI and Meta’s leading AI scientist.
Curious: is it really enjoyable to disseminate complete bullshit?
Tell me.
I wouldn’t know.Also [citation needed].
[some random dude just made it up] doesn’t qualify.– Yann LeCun (@ylecun) May 25, 2024
LeCun is no stranger to public fights with Musk, having previously mocked some of his AI predictions, “conspiracy theories,” and his xAI company’s recent job recruitment drive. Musk responded to Yunn over the weekend by asking him “What ‘science’ have you done in the past 5 years?”
Several people have pointed out that Musk and the original claim uses the term “user data” in the posts rather than “messages,” so they could be referring to metadata.
Security researcher Tommy Mysk wrote that while WhatsApp’s messages are end-to-end encrypted, it does share some metadata with other Meta companies, including user location, which contacts the user is communicating with, and the patterns of when the user is online.
WhatsApp’s Privacy Policy states that it uses some user information to show relevant offers and ads across the Meta products.
This is the second time in as many weeks that Musk has found himself in the middle of an online spat over a messaging service. He joined the Signal vs Telegram battle recently by claiming there are known vulnerabilities in Signal that are not being addressed, though X users added context notes warning there is no evidence of this.
