Elon Musk has slammed Meta’s WhatsApp messaging service over privacy concerns – even as Twitter announced it would be rolling out its own encrypted messaging feature.
Musk lashed out at Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday in response to a screenshot Tweeted by Twitter engineer Fode Dabiri, who claimed WhatsApp had been using Dabiri’s microphone multiple times overnight.
A screenshot showed Dabriri’s microphone turned on as early as 4:20 a.m. — “while I was sleeping,” Dabriri tweeted — until 6:53 a.m.
“WhatsApp can’t be trusted,” Musk wrote in a retweet of Dabriri’s screenshot.
The Meta-owned app responded to Dabriri’s tweet, claiming the issue was “a bug in Android that incorrectly attributes information on their privacy dashboard.”
In a follow-up tweet, WhatsApp “accesses the mic only when users are making a call or recording a voice note or video — and even then, these communications are protected by end-to-end encryption so WhatsApp can’t eavesdrop on them.”
WhatsApp also said it has “asked Google to investigate and resolve.”
Musk announced on Tuesday that Twitter will launch its own encrypted messaging service. A feature that enables only users in a given chat to read their messages also restricts access to the company operating the service.
Twitter’s encrypted direct messages (DMs) may be available to users by May 10, when the “V1.0” update is scheduled to take place, Musk tweeted on Tuesday. “I couldn’t see your DMs even if I had a gun to my head,” Musk wrote.
It’s unclear whether encryption applies to one-on-one messaging and group chats. Musk did not say whether Twitter users will have to opt-in to encrypted messaging or whether it will be automatic.
In an effort to enhance Twitter’s in-app interactions, users can now reply to any message in a DM thread — not just the most recent — and use emojis to respond to messages, similar to Apple’s iMessage features.
“Coming soon will be voice and video chat from your handle to anyone on this platform, so you can talk to people in the world without giving out your phone number,” Musk said.
Zuckerberg’s Facebook offered end-to-end encryption with DMs in 2016 — before the chat function was called Messenger and Facebook’s parent company was called Meta.
WhatsApp — which was bought by Facebook for nearly $22 billion in October 2014 — offered encryption in 2012. Recently, many Twitter and Reddit users have taken to their respective platforms to share their WhatsApp evidence that the feature is buggy. Microphones are activated in the background of the app without their knowledge.
A Reddit thread in late 2022 revealed WhatsApp users trying to fix the bug but calling WhatsApp support “completely useless” whose only advice was to repeatedly delete and re-download the app.
For Android users who want to turn off the microphone when not using WhatsApp, look for the green dot found on the top right corner of the device. A green dot appears when WhatsApp – or any other app – is using the device’s microphone on Android.
Tapping the green icon will show a pop-up with more details, where the user can select the app and then choose to grant microphone and camera access.
A Reddit user calls this process “a bit of a pain” because it has to be done at the end of every WhatsApp call.
On an iPhone, users should go to the Settings app, tap WhatsApp from their notifications list, and toggle microphone permissions.
iPhone users can tell if WhatsApp is accessing their microphone by the orange dot that appears in the top-right corner, although tapping the dot doesn’t prompt a pop-up on Androids.
As if calling WhatsApp untrustworthy wasn’t enough, Musk, who has never been shy about calling out Zuckerberg, called out Zuckerberg again on Tuesday when he tweeted a 2021 article saying Zuckerberg had “bought” the 2020 election. Donations.
“Interesting article,” he tweeted. He tagged Twitter’s Community Notes account — which calls out potentially misleading tweets and provides context to avoid misinformation — to “add more context and corrections.”
Musk responded to a tweet suggesting Zuckerberg was “extremely biased” because he apparently believes Zuckerberg’s donations on behalf of Joe Biden contributed to the 2020 presidential election results.
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