Elon Musk casts doubt on WhatsApp’s trustworthiness
Elon Musk Claims WhatsApp “Can’t Be Trusted”
The reliability of WhatsApp has become a topic of discussion following a tweet by a Twitter user. In the screenshot shared by the user, he expressed concerns about WhatsApp accessing his phone’s microphone even when the app was not active. Foad Dabiri, an engineer at Twitter, also claimed that the app was constantly using his microphone while he slept.
In response to the claims, Elon Musk stated that WhatsApp “cannot be trusted.” He then bizarrely tweeted to his followers, “Don’t trust anything, not even trust anything.” Musk’s comments led to discussions regarding user data privacy, especially since WhatsApp has been part of META (formerly known as Facebook) for several years.
WhatsApp responded by stating that they are investigating the claim. They announced that there may be an error related to the phone and asked Google to fix it. WhatsApp also clarified that once permission is granted, they only access the microphone when a user makes a call or records a voice memo or video.
However, some users in the comment section claimed to have encountered similar issues with WhatsApp. In the past, WhatsApp has faced privacy-related issues when it shared user data such as phone number, device information, location, and contacts with its parent company, META.
The fact that the engineer who shared the claim used a smartphone designed and developed by Google also brought up privacy concerns for both Google and META. As the investigation into WhatsApp’s microphone access continues, users remain cautious about their data privacy on the platform.
