Report: Offending WhatsApp Messages Are Seen by Third-Party Contract Workers

WhatsApp has ever claimed that its letters are end-to-stop encrypted, ensuring that no one else but you and the recipient of the messages tin run across it. Facebook'south CEO Mark Zuckerberg had fifty-fifty claimed in front of the U.S. Senate in 2022 that the visitor does not see whatsoever WhatsApp content. Nonetheless, a troubling new report suggests that might non be true.

The ProPublica report claims that WhatsApp has over 1,000 contract workers in Austin, Texas, Dublin, and Singapore office buildings. These contract workers go through individual messages and media files reported by WhatsApp users and scanned by the company's AI system.

Since WhatsApp messages are end-to-end encrypted, they cannot be read by AI systems. This is why when a WhatsApp user reports a bulletin; five messages are forwarded — the offending message along with four previous ones to a ticketing system from where it is assigned to a contract worker.

These contractors pass judgment on whatever flashes on their screen — claims of everything from fraud or spam to child porn and potential terrorist plotting — typically in less than a minute.

These contract workers are paid hourly and use special software designed by Facebook to get through the messages.

Carl Woog, the Managing director of Communications at WhatsApp, confirmed to Pro Publica that contract workers review WhatsApp messages to remove "the worst" abusers but that it does non consider this content moderation. "We actually don't typically utilise the term for WhatsApp," he said.

The report further alleges that since Facebook purchased WhatsApp, it has taken several deportment which accept compromised its security and privacy. This includes extensive use of outside contractors from WhatsApp, AI systems, and more than, which examine user messages and media files.

WhatsApp user data, ProPublica has learned, helped prosecutors build a loftier-profile case against a Treasury Department employee who leaked confidential documents to BuzzFeed News that exposed how dingy coin flows through U.S. banks.

The condition nether which moderators work and are hired has also been detailed. They are paid $16.50 per hour past Accenture, one of the top corporate contractors. The job listings are but published for "Content Review" positions, with no mention of WhatsApp or Facebook. The content moderators are required to sign strict NDAs. They handle up to 600 "tickets" each day.

Facebook has declined to annotate on the study, though given the bad publicity that information technology will garner now, that should change sometime before long.

[Via ProPublica]