No, Facebook Isn’t Reading Your Private WhatsApp Messages. The Problem Is Much Worse

Facebook’s biggest problem is that it’s too easy to assume the worst about the world’s largest social media company.

On Tuesday, ProPublica reported that Facebook employs 1,000 people whose job it is to read WhatsApp messages reported by users. That last part is important, and we’ll come back to it in a minute. The piece, entitled: “How Facebook Undermines Privacy Protections for Its 2 Billion WhatsApp Users,” would lead you to believe that the publication discovered a new way Facebook is involved in a gross invasion of user privacy.

I think, by now, we’ve all come to recognize that Facebook’s entire business model is, in fact, an invasion of user privacy. That’s not something unique to this situation. But, in this case, it’s not exactly right. More importantly, the fact that it seemed entirely possible is the real issue. No one trusts Facebook, even when it’s arguably doing the right thing–which I think is true in this case.

Here’s what I mean:

When you send messages using WhatsApp, they are encrypted, meaning that only the sender and recipient are able to read them. WhatsApp can’t read them, and neither can Facebook. It’s one of the reasons WhatsApp is the world’s largest messaging service. It earned users’ trust by protecting their privacy.