Facebook Undermines Privacy Protections for Its 2B WhatsApp Users
thewire.in
thewire.in
what on earth? Legitimately how do you design this and don't think you're in some sort of American Psycho skit.
I’m not a fan of FB, but the series of stories on this reporting tool which has been in the product for years is so bad, from journalists and publications that should know better, that I’m almost certain there’s some level of malice to it. Apple muddying the water with its billion dollar PR tentacles?
Artificial intelligence initiates a second set of queues – so-called proactive ones – by scanning unencrypted data that WhatsApp collects about its users and comparing it against suspicious account information and messaging patterns [...] as well as terms and images that have previously been deemed abusive. The unencrypted data available for scrutiny is extensive. It includes the names and profile images of a user’s WhatsApp groups as well as their phone number, profile photo, status message, phone battery level, language and time zone, unique mobile phone ID and IP address, wireless signal strength and phone operating system, as a list of their electronic devices, any related Facebook and Instagram accounts, the last time they used the app and any previous history of violations.
E: Upon looking into this further, the source from ProPublica makes it clear that the proactive queue cannot decrypt your messages. This was unclear in the linked article and only clarified separately in the ProPublica one. Despite that, I think the point still stands: WhatsApp gathers a ton of your personal data, and can reveal that to authorities on request.
Where do you read the "decide to unencrypt your chats" part? I could only find that they have to decide based on the unencrypted parts of a WhatsApp profile plus other unencrypted data.
Artificial intelligence initiates a second set of queues [...] by scanning unencrypted data.
E: the ProPublica article clarified that this is incorrect: https://www.propublica.org/article/how-facebook-undermines-p...
You’re first instinct is correct this is a BS nothing burger by journalist that should know better. It’s a stain on Propublica’s reputation.
Ah yes, the ol’ suspicious battery level
But we have to admit that some of the decisions here are not trivial. The report is not about randomly monitoring messages, it's about messages that were reported by users.
The executive actually puts the dilemma pretty well:
> “WhatsApp is a lifeline for millions of people around the world,” the company said. “The decisions we make around how we build our app are focused around the privacy of our users, maintaining a high degree of reliability and preventing abuse.”
These platforms are helping a lot of people, and they can't fix all man-made problems (i.e. crime, hate speech etc.).
There is a lot of valid criticism against the way they are facilitating hidden discrimination, helping obscure political targeted influence and so on - but this issue is IMO not as contentious.
I brought this argument up many times in discussions but it was often deemed as being a conspiracy theory, but now here we have it.