META and Another PR Content Marketing Play
October 4, 2024
This write up is the work of a dinobaby. No smart software required.
I worked through a 3,400 word interview in the orange newspaper. “Alice Newton-Rex: WhatsApp Makes People Feel Confident to Be Themselves: The Messaging Platform’s Director of Product Discusses Privacy Issues, AI and New Features for the App’s 2bn Users” contains a number of interesting statements. The write up is behind the Financial Times’s paywall, but it is worth subscribing if you are monitoring what Meta (the Zuck) is planning to do with regard to E2EE or end-to-end encrypted messaging. I want to pull out four statements from the WhatsApp professional. My approach will be to present the Meta statements and then pose one question which I thought the interviewer should have asked. After the quotes, I will offer a few observations, primarily focusing on Meta’s apparent “me too” approach to innovation. Telegram’s feature cadence appears to be two to four ahead of Meta’s own efforts.
A WhatsApp user is throwing big, soft, fluffy snowballs at the company. Everyone is impressed. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Good enough.
Okay, let’s look at the quotes which I will color blue. My questions will be in black.
Meta Statement 1: The value of end-to-end encryption.
We think that end-to-end encryption is one of the best technologies for keeping people safe online. It makes people feel confident to be themselves, just like they would in a real-life conversation.
What data does Meta have to back up this “we think” assertion?
Meta Statement 2: Privacy
Privacy has always been at the core of WhatsApp. We have tons of other features that ensure people’s privacy, like disappearing messages, which we launched a few years ago. There’s also chat lock, which enables you to hide any particular conversation behind a PIN so it doesn’t appear in your main chat list.
Always? (That means that privacy is the foundation of WhatsApp in a categorically affirmative way.) What do you mean by “always”?
Meta Statement 3:
… we work to prevent abuse on WhatsApp. There are three main ways that we do this. The first is to design the product up front to prevent abuse, by limiting your ability to discover new people on WhatsApp and limiting the possibility of going viral. Second, we use the signals we have to detect abuse and ban bad accounts — scammers, spammers or fake ones. And last, we work with third parties, like law enforcement or fact-checkers, on misinformation to make sure that the app is healthy.
What data can you present to back up these statements about what Meta does to prevent abuse?
Meta Statement 4:
if we are forced under the Online Safety Act to break encryption, we wouldn’t be willing to do it — and that continues to be our position.
Is this position tenable in light of France’s action against Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, and the financial and legal penalties nation states can are are imposing on Meta?
Observations:
- Just like Mr. Zuck’s cosmetic and physical make over, these statements describe a WhatsApp which is out of step with the firm’s historical behavior.
- The changes in WhatsApp appear to be emulation of some Telegram innovations but with a two to three year time lag. I wonder if Meta views Telegram as a live test of certain features and functions.
- The responsiveness of Meta to lawful requests has, based on what I have heard from my limited number of contacts, has been underwhelming. Cooperation is something in which Meta requires some additional investment and incentivization of Meta employees interacting with government personnel.
Net net: A fairly high profile PR and content marketing play. FT is into kid glove leather interviews and throwing big soft Nerf balls, it seems.
Stephen E Arnold, October 4, 2024
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