• Privacy "WhatsApp cannot see your messages or listen to your calls": the app defends itself after the controversy over its terms and conditions

  • WhatsApp Warn of a "worrying" increase in hacks on WhatsApp

Facebook has been ensuring for years that no one can read the content of WhatsApp messages because they are protected by end-to-end encryption. A statement that the company has made a flag during its latest crises that an investigation has questioned by revealing that it has specific workers to

review the individual content of the conversations

.

The investigation carried out by ProPublica is based on data, documents and dozens of interviews with employees and subcontractors, both current and former, and even a confidential complaint filed in 2020 with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, in which it is assured that the privacy claims made by Facebook about WhatsApp are false, and that

there are workers who use specific programs to access user messages

.

According to the news agency, WhatsApp has at least a thousand

subcontracted workers

in its offices in Austin, Texas (United States), Dublin (Ireland) and Singapore, which examine millions of content shared by users per week through your courier service.

The messages are private, as the technology company ensures on its website, since they are protected by end-to-end encryption, which prevents anyone

other than the sender and receiver from knowing the content of the conversations

.

However, these outsourced workers use special Facebook software to analyze messages and other content shared in chats that other users have reported for violating the platform's policies, and are

examined by an artificial intelligence system

.

In this way, when a message is "reported", subcontracted workers are able to access its content.

Subsequently, they must make a judgment on that content, although they cannot delete individual content, as it does on the

Facebook and Instagram platforms

.

With this moderation - which is not referred to as such in WhatsApp - workers review messages to

identify and eliminate "the worst abusers"

, as the company's Communications Director, Carl Woog, has acknowledged to ProPublica, without clarify whether they reported their findings to the competent authorities.

WhatsApp defends its use: "it is important to prevent the worst abuses on the Internet"

This message has been reiterated by a company spokesperson in statements to the Europa Press news agency in Spain.

"WhatsApp provides a way for people to report 'spam' or abuse, which includes sharing the most recent messages in a chat.

This feature is important to prevent the worst abuse on the Internet

. We strongly disagree with the idea of ​​accepting the reports that a user decides to send us is incompatible with end-to-end encryption, "he said.

Facebook acquired the messaging service

WhatsApp

in 2014 and two years later incorporated end-to-end encryption.

In 2019, CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared his intention to extend this protection to his other communication services, Instagram and Messenger.

A year earlier, he

had assured the United States Senate that the company did not see any of the WhatsApp content

.

A statement that, if proven false,

could lead to the commission of a crime

by Mark Zuckerberg.

Currently, only WhatsApp has this encryption, and it is also

the only service that does not offer periodic transparency reports

, in which the company details the actions carried out against content not allowed on Facebook or

Instagram

.

The investigation also includes the scope of user data that the company shares with law enforcement authorities when required.

ProPublica

points out that

WhatsApp shares metadata with the authorities,

unencrypted records that can end up revealing a user's activity.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

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