WhatsApp has always been known for its end-to-end encryption system that keeps the conversation between sender and recipient private. Facebook-owned messaging app Facebook owned messaging app, WhatsApp, has repeatedly emphasized that nobody outside of the parties involved can access the conversations, not even Facebook or its parent company. A new report has revealed some shocking details about WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption method. The report stated that, contrary to the company’s claims, the messages are not encrypted end-to-end. The company has now issued an official statement disputing the claims in the report.
The latest messages from WhatsApp can be shared in a chat, so people can report spam or abuse. It is important for preventing the worst abuse on the internet to use this feature. WhatsApp strongly disagreed with the view that accepting reports a user sends is incompatible with end-to-end encryption. According to a ProPublica report titled ‘How Facebook Undermines Privacy Protections for Its 2 Billion WhatsApp Users,’ WhatsApp has more than 1,000 contract workers in Austin, Texas, Dublin and Singapore who examine millions of pieces of users’ content. The report notes that the works use special Facebook software to gain access to a person’s private WhatsApp messages, images and videos sent through the messaging app.
Using special Facebook software, they sift through streams of private messages, images and videos when they are reported by WhatsApp users as inappropriate and then screened by the company’s artificial intelligence systems. ‘Typically in less than a minute, contractors pass judgment on what pops up on their screens, whether it is fraud or spam or child porn or a potential terrorist plot,’ the report said.
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According to the report, it notes that WhatsApp’s team of content moderators has access to flagged conversations if either the flaggers or the participants flag them. Moreover, WhatsApp only forwards its people the five most recent messages after content is reported. Accordingly, the messaging app does not share the entire chat history with its users. ProPublica also contacted the contact workers, but they advised the publication that they work for Accenture and had been forced to sign nondisclosure agreements.
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