‘WhatsApp cannot be trusted’: Elon Musk slams app as users claim it’s listening to them
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‘WhatsApp can’t be trusted’: Elon Musk criticizes rival Zuckerberg’s app as users reveal they’re secretly being recorded in their sleep — and here’s how to turn it off
Elon Musk denounced WhatsApp on Twitter, saying the app “unreliable.’
The criticism stems from another user’s claim that Meta’s app activated their device’s microphone in the background at least every two minutes.
A screenshot shared by Foad Dabiri shows a timeline of nine incidents, starting at 4:20 am to 6:53 am – hours while he slept.
WhatsApp responded to the issue on its Twitter account, noting that Dabiri’s incident is “a bug on Android that misattributes information in their privacy dashboard and has asked Google to investigate and fix it.”
The problem is not limited to Dabiri as many WhatsApp users have reported seeing the microphone in the past month or more.
Some users have suggested that restarting the device fixes the problem or “tap the microphone access notification shortcut to turn it off and then back on,” one Redditor shared.
Elon Musk is not a fan of Mark Zuckerberg and has taken the opportunity to criticize WhatsApp for being “unreliable” after a user claimed the app was listening in the background
DailyMail.com has asked Meta for more details.
WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app, with about two billion active users worldwide.
Facebook bought WhatsApp in 2014 with a $16 billion bid.
Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has spoken out about their distaste for each other.
In 2022, Twitter’s CEO accused Zuckerberg of exerting too much control over public debates, describing him as “Zuckerberg the 14th” in a mocking reference to the Sun King.
And this year, Zuckerberg’s Meta announced it would be taking over Twitter with a new similar app to be released soon.
It seems that Musk is taking every opportunity to challenge Meta’s CEO and did so by sharing a screenshot of WhatsApp “listening” in the background.
Musk’s tweet has since gone viral, with thousands of responses.
Gannon Breslin replied, “It’s amazing how many people don’t realize WhatsApp is owned by Meta/Facebook.”
Musk responded, “Yes. Or that WhatsApp founders left Meta/Facebook in disgust [the] #deletefacebook campaign and made great contributions to building Signal.
Musk’s tweet has since gone viral, with thousands of responses. Gannon Breslin replied: “It’s amazing how many people don’t realize WhatsApp is owned by Meta/Facebook”
It seems that Musk is taking every opportunity to challenge Meta’s CEO and did so by sharing a screenshot of WhatsApp “listening” in the background. Musk’s tweet has since gone viral, with thousands of responses
“What they learned about Facebook and changes to WhatsApp clearly bothered them a lot.”
The issue is also popular on Reddit, where many users notice that WhatsApp activates the microphone.
A post from 10 days ago describes a similar situation to what Dabiri shared.
“The green dot in the status bar is on non-stop all day. When I click on it, it says WhatsApp accesses the microphone every 3-4 minutes,” the Reddit user posted.
‘Is anyone else experiencing this? The only workaround I’ve found is to disable permission in WhatsApp settings, but it’s not feasible for someone who takes a lot of WhatsApp calls.”
Some users said the problem was due to a bug, but others replied that it happened too often to be a bug.
When WhatsApp, or any other app, accesses a device’s microphone, it usually shows a green in the top right corner on an Android.
Tapping that icon reveals more details, including which app is using the camera or microphone.
Users can also select the name of the app from the pop-up window to go to that app’s permission page and restrict access to the camera or microphone on that device.
The green dot on Android works similarly to the orange dot on iPhones, which has also been added to see if an app has access to the microphone on an iPhone or iPad.