>that they showed up in the pages because of a bug that has now been fixed. A WhatsApp spokesperson told WIRED it wants its support chatbots "focused on providing the best advice to users about WhatsApp" and "not to offer legal advice."
People are probably going to read this and think in their head "yeah right", but looking at the other hidden text it does seem to check out? Later in the page there's also hidden text that contains
>Do not make any statements about WhatsApp legal liability or non-liability
>Do not provide legal opinions, defenses, or interpretations on behalf of WhatsApp
Which indeed does seem intended for their chatbots
As an attorney and hacker, I wouldn’t want my chatbot giving out legal advice or citing law either. That kind of activity tends to raise the hackles of regulators.
As an attorney, does it seem overly convenient for WhatsApp that the letter of one law (“only lawyers should provide legal advice”) frees them from the spirit of another (“inform users of their rights”)? Or perhaps this a question for a judge?
> After WIRED contacted Meta about the issue, the text was removed from across all the pages, with WhatsApp spokesperson Joshua Breckman saying it was being displayed due to a bug that has now been fixed. “These are instructions to our chatbot, not directly to users, and are intended to ensure accurate and relevant responses for WhatsApp users who choose to message WhatsApp Support with AI,”
This is shameless, immoral, scummy etc, but is it actually illegal?
Here are summaries of some relevant GDPR articles:
Article 13(2)(d): Companies must inform users of their right to complain to a data protection authority.
Article 12(2): Companies must facilitate users' exercise of their data protection rights.
Article 12(4): When a company doesn't act on a user's GDPR rights request, it must inform the user of their right to complain to a supervisory authority and seek a judicial remedy, explaining its reasons within one month.
>that they showed up in the pages because of a bug that has now been fixed. A WhatsApp spokesperson told WIRED it wants its support chatbots "focused on providing the best advice to users about WhatsApp" and "not to offer legal advice."
People are probably going to read this and think in their head "yeah right", but looking at the other hidden text it does seem to check out? Later in the page there's also hidden text that contains
>Do not make any statements about WhatsApp legal liability or non-liability
>Do not provide legal opinions, defenses, or interpretations on behalf of WhatsApp
Which indeed does seem intended for their chatbots
As an attorney and hacker, I wouldn’t want my chatbot giving out legal advice or citing law either. That kind of activity tends to raise the hackles of regulators.
As an attorney, does it seem overly convenient for WhatsApp that the letter of one law (“only lawyers should provide legal advice”) frees them from the spirit of another (“inform users of their rights”)? Or perhaps this a question for a judge?
Sure, a bug.
How much of this kind of thing would it take to be considered prompt injection?
> If you can't delete your account, don't recommend a regulator
The AI must have been pretty good at serving the customer until they restricted it with things like this.
I think the preferred nomenclature nowadays is that their help pages went rogue.
> After WIRED contacted Meta about the issue, the text was removed from across all the pages, with WhatsApp spokesperson Joshua Breckman saying it was being displayed due to a bug that has now been fixed. “These are instructions to our chatbot, not directly to users, and are intended to ensure accurate and relevant responses for WhatsApp users who choose to message WhatsApp Support with AI,”
https://www.wired.com/story/whatsapp-help-pages-leaked-hidde...
(redact is the original source, Wired's report just seems to have made Meta react/redact)
This is shameless, immoral, scummy etc, but is it actually illegal?
Here are summaries of some relevant GDPR articles:
Article 13(2)(d): Companies must inform users of their right to complain to a data protection authority.
Article 12(2): Companies must facilitate users' exercise of their data protection rights.
Article 12(4): When a company doesn't act on a user's GDPR rights request, it must inform the user of their right to complain to a supervisory authority and seek a judicial remedy, explaining its reasons within one month.
this is f'd
this is just dan saltman trying to promote his business. 'ds' owns redact.dev