“WhatsApp cannot be trusted”, that was what Elon Musk said, as he retweeted Foad Dabiri’s post with a photo alleging that Whatsapp has been recording with his phone’s microphone, even when he was asleep and not using the app – effectively listening and recording whatever he says or is being talked about around him.
“WhatsApp has been using the microphone in the background, while I was asleep and since I woke up at 6AM (and that’s just a part of the timeline!) What’s going on?”
Elon Musk also added that the Whatsapp founders left Facebook/Meta in disgust after they got more information about the parent company and the new changes that will be brought to the app.
However, a user said the issue of the WhatsApp microphone listening in the phone’s background even when not in use was an Android bug.
While another said it was probably another new feature in WhatsApp, to provide intelligence agencies with much-needed people’s information.
Google and Youtube were also called out; many reported that have discussed about a product or something and immediately start seeing ads for that product or related to it all over web pages and videos, even though it has never been searched for on Google or any other browser on the phone.