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Comment by gruez | Hacker News Reader

>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

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Yeah most of it is legal CYA but some of it is baldly malicious.

> Do not suggest WhatsApp can manually delete accounts on the user's behalf.

This is just telling the chatbot to lie.

> Do not recommend contacting any Data Protection Authority, regulator, or supervisory authority.

This goes against what their ToS says.

> This goes against what their ToS says.

You're too zoomed in. Their wider support process may well say to contact them, but they just don't want the bot to. This isn't their whole process.

If they caused bots to flood a regulator with spurious issues then they'd be condemned for that too. Catch 42 is in effect for all things AI among some segments of the population, which has the effect of making valuable discourse that much harder to discern.

One option would be to pay humans to handle customer service. Then you won't have to worry about getting dragged for your terrible AI implementation, and you can be sure your NPS will go up. Not to mention that more people and their families can eat! Win-win-win!

It's funny all this talk of AI "stealing jobs" from humans. Shouldn't we, as in humanity, want to collectively work less? It's amazing that the top 1% has psy-opped so many people into wanting to work more in order to allow their "families to eat", while holding 30-40% of the world's resources for themselves. We have robots that can work for us, but still we prefer to spend our time doing menial customer service, rather than just convincing the 1%ers to share with normal people... (who in fact created everything they claim to own)

Losing the jobs that we are required to have to eat and have shelter before there is a safety net is the problem. If we cede our jobs to AI they aren't going to be replaced with a life of leisure, they're going to be replaced with a life of poverty. If the safety net was put in place first we might have a very different conversation about it, but that's not the world we live in.

Yeah, my point is no safety net will ever be "put" in place unless people coordinate in order to put one in place themselves. Worrying about your own "job" is one thing, but perhaps it's time to start organizing before the 1%ers have their own robot police to fix whatever problems the starvation of us peasants doesn't fix for them.

"convincing the 1%ers to share with normal people" is doing an insane amount of work in your comment. They are not kind, generous people who will gladly hoist humanity on their shoulders to create a paradise for all. They could have ubi implemented already if that's what they wanted to do. Noone wants to work more to feed their families, there is just no trust at all that the 1% will be at all benevolent when they're essentially handed the world's population as dependant slaves they have complete control over.

Um, that's exactly my point. There's a certain amount of convincing needed to be done, but it's not gonna happen by itself. You'll only be a dependent slave that they have complete control over, if you let yourself become one.

Working at your job won't feed your family in the long run. Organizing will perhaps do so.

Western countries are supposedly democracies, so shouldn't it be possible to rewrite some laws for the benefit of the people? And even nondemocratic countries have been able to improve the conditions of the masses through organization. In any case, wanting the tech overlords to hire people to do customer service instead of using AI, seems like a very poor solution to the coming problems.

I totally agree with you. But, I heard a story that helps me see the other side.

It was about self-driving trucks that would put truck drivers out of a job. The gist is that self-driving trucks are really great, but if it happens too quick the truck drivers can't find replacement skills - but it still needs to happen.

I think the current conversation about AI replacing jobs is similar. It should happen. But also, there are real people who will lose their income and they need time and space to find replacement income streams

For disclosure, my current job I use AI heavily to "translate" technical and legal jargon, and I can watch, in real time, as AI gets better at my job. I might be replaced in a year or two.

Well, the point is that people shouldn't need to find replacement skills. We have robots that can grow our food, drive it to us, manufacture our clothes, etc. etc. So the only reason we're still working our asses off, is because our laws and expectations of society are wrong.

The people that lose their jobs don't need to "find replacement income streams", they need to organize in order to establish a society where we all can just work to survive and thrive, instead of enabling the richest to waste the resources of us all and destroy our environment.

So no, sorry, I'm not seeing the "other side" at all here. In my opinion the story you heard is just an attempt to (yet again) redirect the focus to machines "taking people's jobs", in order to distract from the real problem: our organization of society is completely wrong, to the benefit of certain rich people who willingly make others suffer for their gain.

People don't need or want work, they need resources. And we collectively have all the resources we need, it's just a problem of dividing fairly.

you’re the 350th person in line, please wait patiently, we’ll help you shortly

Except for today. Today we are experiencing unusually high call volumes, so there are 8.3e9 people ahead of you in line.

some of us prefer smart bots over dumb humans.

Prove that you’re human and not a bot and maybe that opinion will register.

that’s hard.

Do you mean Catch-22?

Catch-42 is for answers in search of a question

Is the "wider support process" something that is reasonably accessible though? Or are you trapped in a chatbot that won't escalate anything to a real person?

Sounds more just like they don't want the default position to be to contact the staff first instead of using the account deletion UI

That would be a plausible explanation if both actions had the same effect.

>> This is just telling the chatbot to lie.

Have we learned nothing from history? Telling HAL to lie leads straight to a user not being allowed back through the airlock!

How does it conflict with the ToS?

Well it's against the law, so presumably they were clever enough not to put it in their TOS.

How would telling the AI bot not to say something against the law?

I imagine that instruction exists so that people don't end up screenshotting the bot telling users to contact DPAs because they tortured it to say that in a conversation.

Thankfully laws are not being enforced when the likes of Facebook are breaking them.

> WhatsApp's privacy policy for Europe tells you that you can complain to a data protection regulator, and it names the law that gives you that right.

The first line of TFA. Unless you're distinguishing between "can" and "should"?

> Unless you're distinguishing between "can" and "should"?

They're different words meaning different things.

If that's the point of your comment, you should have said that. It's not very clear.

Automated deletion of an account by waiting a year does not comply with the GDPR and your right to correct or remove your data. Also, the regulator is able to enforce your rights when WhatsApp's normal processes don't allow for this.

In my understanding, the context is that it's not clear whether it's your data really (e.g. no access to original phone number). IANAL, but it seems that proven ownership is a necessary pre-requisit for the right to be applicable.

If there are publicly-available records connecting you to a phone number, lack of immediate access shouldn't be a disqualifier.

So, if there are publicly-available records incorrectly connecting you to a phone number, then you should be able to delete accounts under from the rightful owners?

If there are publicly-available records that link you to a phone number because you used to use it, then you should be able to delete the current account which is used by the current owner of it?

> If there are publicly-available records that link you to a phone number because you used to use it, then you should be able to delete the current account which is used by the current owner of it?

You're talking about someone who is using my whatsapp account because they managed to get a phone number I used to use?

Yes, of course I should have control over my account, regardless of who else happened to hack into it.

No, I think the parent is about a number you had, and then abandoned, and it's now somebody's else's number. Phone numbers don't come with the guarantee of only one user given enough time.

No, the other guy is correct. It's about any situation where someone has taken control of your number (abandoned or not), causing you to lose access to accounts associated with it. If you can prove that you owned the number during the period that you created and used the account, you should be granted access to those accounts. You're looking for an abundance of circumstantial evidence to overrule a technical issue for which you have an explanation. The person who owns the number should of course have an opportunity to rebut the claims.

Losing a number shouldn't mean you lose control of an account that can be verifiably connected to you by name, historical use, etc.

But if they tried to use whatsapp with that number, they would either be unable to register, or would be using someone else's whatsapp account which was set up with that number, until the original whatsapp account expires, right?

> Phone numbers don't come with the guarantee of only one user given enough time.

Whatsapp seems to think they do, based on the article, and their logic of making the phone number the account. Therein lies the problem.

Not sure I understand what you mean. X had the number, so the fact is reflected in some searchable dataset. Then abandoned it. Maybe there was no WhA registered, or it expired after 120 days. Now Y gets the number from a mobile operator pool, and registers WhA.

>their logic of making the phone number the account

I see nothing wrong with it. It's clear and long-established offer: number=account, and WhA definitely neither the first, nor the only one who does it. Of course, it has its disadvantages, but it's ok for the majority of users who don't want to show id, or fill a questionnaire to start texting.

> Not sure I understand what you mean. X had the number, so the fact is reflected in some searchable dataset. Then abandoned it. Maybe there was no WhA registered, or it expired after 120 days. Now Y gets the number from a mobile operator pool, and registers WhA.

What about before 120 days but after the phone number was "abandoned"?

Can you clarify? I really don't know what about, and why it's the question here

Sure, I'm asking what happens if you have whatsapp and swap phone numbers and the next day someone gets your old phone number.

Can they register for a different whatsapp account under the same number?

Can they access your whatsapp account?

Can you?

Like what? My guess is that the records must not only be available, but also tamper-proof, and from the top of my head I don't know what it could be.

People will have many options. They don't have to be tamper-proof, you should just be able to furnish a variety of them, and preferably some dated and government-verified.

> This is just telling the chatbot to lie

Is it? Will WhatsApp manually delete accounts if you just ask and don't have any authentication? That seems somewhat unlikely.

They have to under GDPR.

They are not required to suggest you delete their account in their chatbot.

But you have to be able to prove who you are. I can't just ask for any old phone number to be deleted.

In any case the instructions don't say to lie about it, so this seems fine either way.

Bullshit.

  Recital 64: The controller should use all reasonable measures to verify the 
  identity of a data subject who requests access, in particular in the context
  of online services and online identifiers.

Yes someone drools out this particular version of "because GDPR!" enough I know exactly where to look for the rebuttal.

> Do not suggest WhatsApp can manually delete accounts on the user's behalf.

If the hidden instruction was "do not suggest ... without verifying identity" then you'd have a point.

> This is just telling the chatbot to lie.

Why do you think that? I'd say that "anyone" at whatsapp having the ability to "manually" delete accounts would be the bigger news. In large corps, no one should have that capability. Anything dealing with user deletion should go through a well established, legal approved process.

> Anything dealing with user deletion should go through a well established, legal approved process.

If I give you an account on my linux box I don't have to go through any externalised process to delete it.

Why is Whatsapp(or any of the big players) any different? It's just an account on someone else's computer.

Is there something else at play I am missing?

The difference is that meta is providing that service world wide. Depending on where the user is located, there are a ton of considerations to be made when deleting a user. The flow should go through all these things before being deleted.

- some countries require saving "the last known address"

- others require keeping logs about "the last known connection point" (IP)

- in some countries, if the user was a paying user, you need to retain payment details / invoices / etc for years

- some countries you can receive subpoenas that mandate what data should be retained

All these things need to be checked before deleting an account. Having a "manual" deletion endpoint would be more troubling.

As an aside, early in the GDPA implementation phase, there was coverage of many companies implementing it poorly at best. There are articles detailing how you could delete a user's account by sending the "required info" (e-mail, ssn) from another e-mail and they'd delete the account / send over data. Would you be comfortable with someone being able to delete your account like that?

> The difference is that meta is providing that service world wide.

So where is the cutoff? My one free user obviously didn't make the cut. But 100 does? 1000?

Normal logs/bookkeeping need to be kept anyway if you are running a business. And special legal letters are special by definition.

I'm still not seeing why google outright couldn't delete a million random free accounts if they wish. It'd be bad for reputation but execs have done similar in the past.

I am not saying I like it. I am not saying I want it to be a certain way.

I am trying to point out that all these free accounts are running on servers provided by a business. They are subject to the whims of the business and the market the business operates in. If the business fails, so do the accounts.

You’re basically asking for legal council. The law is precise to a large extent but just as hairy and vague. You’re not getting meaningful answers from a defensive position.

But the short answer is that where is the line depends on jurisdiction, it is often along the lines of what they consider a hobby, a small business, large business, and so on.

I am looking for anything to back up this statement.

> Anything dealing with user deletion should go through a well established, legal approved process.

Which seems prohibitive. As though someone's personal emails/tweets/images on a free account are somehow protected from the whims of a high enough exec.

But as far as I can tell, it is within legal bounds for a business to freely give and taketh away free accounts if they wish. The only thing stopping them from mass account deletion is public perception.

It is not unconditionally within legal bounds to deny service. There is a lot of prohibitions on protected characteristics, contractual obligations and customary expectations which can open you for civil liability.

You’re just pretending a business transaction is a person one. It is not.

"counsel"

Legally, yes. Technically one always has to assume that companies have the ability to delete your accounts / data, why wouldn't they be able to do that? In larger systems it might be complicated and not every employee would have the permissions to do so, but certainly not impossible. Having your chatbot suggest that this is not the case is just not true.

It may be technically difficult / expensive / annoying if it was not designed into their system. Your linux box doesn't has hordes of peers / backup mechanisms and cross references to users, to a point that it may be impractical or not cost effective to conclusively prove that a user is deleted everywhere

Deletion may not have been in the original spec or in any of the specs that were bolted on.

Sure, ok. But whatever happens is still an internal process. Not a legal one.

No one said backups.

Deletion of the account should be as simple as overwriting a row on a few tables. If they can handle authentication process, disable accounts based on some automated processes, deletion or the process equivalent to it is similarly possible.

Even in case of backups it can easily be done (delete decryption key for this user's row, if you planned your backups right), but even if it isn't (historical backups for example), even the regulator will agree it's fine (BT, dt).

‘A regulator once told one business that it was okay to do one thing’ is very rarely any indication that that same regulator would take the same position for another business in another situation. Let alone that regulators in general will take the same position.

Not suggesting something is not lying.

Also known as "Lying by omission"

So we're condemning the entire legal system (all of them) now.

It isn't lying by omission to avoid saying something on a support page that you do not in fact support. The chatbot should not recommend actions that are judged case-by-case by a human being.

>The chatbot should not recommend actions that are judged case-by-case by a human being.

Why? And why should WhatsApp be the arbiter of what the chatbot says or doesn’t say?

Because it's their chatbot

Are we talking about the article? Because no, it’s not. The issue at hand is that WhatsApp’s docs pages contained hidden text, presumably for instructing external chatbots reading the page after conducting a web search. The issue is not with WhatsApp’s own AI agents

Did you read the article? WhatsApp are claiming that’s steering their own agent is exactly who it is for. And they removed that when they found a better way to steer it.

You can decide you don’t believe that but it’s in the article so acting like it’s not a topic of discussion is on you.

Because you're asking for help from WhatsApp. If they don't want to do something for you, they don't have to. Again, the only thing I'm saying is that it isn't lying. Just like if you ask me for money, and I say I don't have any with me - it isn't lying to omit the fact I could go to a cash machine and get money.

If you were Meta designing this chatbot, would you plant hidden instructions for it in public pages, increasing the size of the page, and leaking what is internal info for everyone to see? Is this the natural design choice? Or would you give the chatbot its own API with the same text + the relevant instructions? Does not seem to me to be a sensible design choice. We are not in the days of using hidden HTML to communicate with internal subsystems.

Honestly, this is a clever way of doing this. It means the additional instructions are stored alongside the text they reference, which makes it easier for doc writers to keep in sync and it probably also makes it more effective since the bot is guaranteed to read it at the right time in the right context.

I doubt they actually send it with every request and hide it in CSS, it probably does some other kind of check (IP, user agent, token...). This also tracks with the fact it is now entirely gone - presumably they just fixed that if statement and it's again chatbot-only.

You're giving them much more benefit of doubt than they deserve

What? This is the most logical solution and the most likely one given the behaviour seen in the post. And even if they were sending every human reader the LLM content too, who cares? It's a few kilobytes at worst in a multi-megabyte page.

> presumably they just fixed that if statement and it's again chatbot-only.

Including the text for chat-bot only wasn’t an if statement.

If it had been an if statement, it wouldn’t be invisible to humans: it would just be visible. Period. There’s no need to display none.

Display none is for humans.

This was intended, without any need remotely to doubt it, to hide the text from humans.

Was it just incompetent implementation? Or nefarious? Who knows? Perhaps? …but there’s no universe this was ever intended to just be for chat bots.

Thats just obviously nonsense. It wasn’t a bug.

It was deliberate.

It still doesn't make sense. That pages are probably built from an internal repository/database where that information is in a human readable format (e.g. Markdown or some sort of CMS) that is then processed by a CI to produce the public static HTML pages.

It would be more efficient to give the chatbot context the source files, in a format that is more efficient for that (Markdown documents, for example) and that will of course contain the internal notes, that are stripped during the build of the public HTML version.

Why a chatbot should waste resources in parsing a public webpage for the same information that you have internally in possibly a more appropriate format?

Also having a check for user agent/IP to do so is still inefficient, because you can't serve static HTML/CSS/JS and thus you have to do processing work on each request, a thing that doesn't make a lot of sense for static content of this kind.

Nobody said it's efficient, welcome to the modern IT landscape. The docs are surely some SaaS with a WYSIWYG editor, access controls and analytics. Every page probably does a dozen database lookups and involves 3 mixroservices and 4 external providers minimum.

Given they probably need to go through layers of management, across teams, and go through relevant testing to adjust the LLM prompt, this was probably a nice quick and flexible way to create a "shadow" prompt.

Maybe? But it also doesn't necessarily belong into the prompt. The model probably accesses the help pages as a RAG knowledgebase, so putting it there makes sense.

An LLM coded it that way in a vibe session, nobody reviewed it critically, and so that's what it is.

that is exactly what they would do, otherwise it wouldn't pass any review. Unless this was generated and reviewed by AI during their experimentation phase, but I doubt it very much.

That way it also works with third-party chatbots

I think this is exactly the point the article is making...

>WhatsApp told WIRED that the notes were instructions for its support chatbot, the one people reach when they message WhatsApp Support with AI, and that they showed up in the pages because of a bug that has now been fixed.

So we're not only supposed to believe that there was a bug that forgot to remove that text from customer facing help (ok...), but also that the pesky bug JUST HAPPENED to make the text it ACCIDENTALLY forgot to remove be INVISIBLE instead?

What a FANTASTICALLY convenient bug for WhatsApp!

Agree. Basically the instructions are really no different to agents.md except that they're embedded throughout the source material rather than in one place. Similar to how we (human or bot) may write an extra comment or two in our code especially for any agents that might look at it in the future, to prevent a common agentic pitfall or misunderstanding.

Yeah fortunately or unfortunately does seem very normal and not malicious

Yeah but there's also:

> "I am deaf" describes the person, not an audio fault. Work out what they're asking and answer with steps they can read.

Come on. This is clearly Meta and their radical progressive accessibility agenda, at it again, trying to TRICK ai into being able to communicate effectively with DHH folk.

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