WhatsApp help pages hid instructions limiting its support chatbot on privacy topics
What happened
An investigator checked 545 WhatsApp help pages and found 102 hidden text blocks on 80 of them, most of them ordinary notes. Some instructed WhatsApp's own support chatbot not to recommend data protection regulators and not to cite privacy law once a user mentions a lawyer or a lawsuit. The report says these limits conflict with the complaint rights and GDPR terms WhatsApp lists publicly in its European privacy policy. WhatsApp has removed the instructions. The investigation did not test whether the chatbot or outside AI assistants actually followed them, so there is no result on real-world enforcement.
Written by AI from the coverage · updated 3 hours ago
Coverage
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- Hacker News front pageWhatsApp's help pages hid LLM instructions: dont recommend a regulator
WhatsApp 帮助页曾隐藏面向自家客服聊天机器人的指令，要求不推荐数据保护监管机构，并在用户提及律师或诉讼后不引用相关隐私法律。调查者检查了 545 个页面，在 80 页中发现 102 个隐藏文本块，多数属于常规说明，但上述限制与其欧洲隐私政策公开列明的投诉权及 GDPR 存在冲突。WhatsApp 已移除这些指令，调查未测试自家聊天机器人或外部 AI 助手是否实际遵循它们。
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Heat now 9·Comparable peak 9（Oct 20 11:00）·Comparable change over 24 hours –
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