Twitter boss Elon Musk has put Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg on notice by warning the public that his company’s WhatsApp messenger “cannot be trusted.”
Along with Facebook and Instagram, WhatsApp is one of the platforms owned by Zuckerberg’s Meta.
On Tuesday, Twitter’s director of engineering Foad Dabri tweeted that he’s discovered suspicious behavior from WhatsApp.
Dabri posted a screenshot showing that WhatsApp has been accessing the microphone on his cell phone, without his permission.
In the Twitter post, Dabri suggested that WhatsApp had been secretly listening to him.
Musk shared the post with his 139 million followers and warned: “WhatsApp cannot be trusted.”
WhatsApp cannot be trusted https://t.co/3gdNxZOLLy
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 9, 2023
The WhatsApp Company also responded to the Twitter post.
WhatsApp said it had been in touch with the Twitter engineer who posted the issue with the app.
The company attempted to write the issue off as a simple bug, however, and claimed it had asked Google to look into it.
“We believe this is a bug on Android that misattributes information in their Privacy Dashboard and have asked Google to investigate and remediate,” the post said.
Over the last 24 hours we’ve been in touch with a Twitter engineer who posted an issue with his Pixel phone and WhatsApp.
We believe this is a bug on Android that mis-attributes information in their Privacy Dashboard and have asked Google to investigate and remediate. https://t.co/MnBi3qE6Gp
— WhatsApp (@WhatsApp) May 9, 2023
Meta purchased the messaging service WhatsApp in 2014.
In 2018, Senator Gary Peters (D-MI) asked Zuckerberg a direct question about whether or not Facebook was listening to platform users.
Some had smeared the idea that social media apps spy on users as a “conspiracy theory.”
The accusation was that Facebook listened to users’ conversations so they could target advertising.
PETERS: Yes or no: Does Facebook use audio obtained from mobile devices to enrich personal information about its users?
ZUCKERBERG: No.
According to Mediaite, Zuckerberg’s response was aimed at the “conspiracy theory” and went on to note that there is an audio component for users who post video footage, which “was a bit of an unnecessary clarification, though, given that the question was about surreptitious recording, not something users were explicitly recording media to share.”
Musk expanded on his warning about WhatsApp in a follow-up tweet.
“WhatsApp founders left Meta/Facebook in disgust, started the #deletefacebook campaign, and made major contributions to building Signal,” Musk said.
“What they learned about Facebook and changes to WhatsApp obviously disturbed them greatly.”
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.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 9, 2023
Meta has responded to “spying” allegations in the past.
The company has also denied that the social media platforms listen in to users, saying, “Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp do not listen in or use the cell phone microphone to influence advertising in any way.”
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