WhatsApp with the Government Trying to Censor Private Messages?

The Twitter Files have been instrumental in exposing how the federal government is colluding with Big Tech companies to suppress information, arguments, and opinions that they deem to be problematic. A new report suggests that the government’s censorship efforts aren’t focused only on social media platforms, but they also included private messages sent on WhatsApp, which arguably makes the state’s actions even more troubling from a liberty perspective.

Government Targeted WhatsApp for ‘Misinformation’

A new report written by David Zweig in his “Silent Lunch” Substack newsletter revealed the Biden White House, in its efforts to limit supposed “misinformation” regarding the COVID-19 vaccines, pressured Meta to figure out how to address non-approved narratives from being disseminated on its private messaging tool.

WhatsApp is a popular instant messaging app that allows users to send and receive messages, calls, photos, videos, documents, and voice messages using an internet connection. It was developed by WhatsApp Inc. and was initially released in 2009. In 2014, Facebook acquired WhatsApp, and since then, the app has grown to become one of the most widely used messaging apps in the world. WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption to secure users’ messages and ensure privacy.

Zweig obtained emails “between White House staffers and Meta executives about WhatsApp” through discovery in Missouri v. Biden, a First Amendment lawsuit brought by two attorneys general and New Civil Liberties Alliance on behalf of private individuals.

The journalist writes:

“As early as January 26, 2021, almost immediately after Biden took office, communications between the White House and Meta were underway regarding content moderation. Of specific concern was vaccine hesitancy and how Meta would combat this across its multiple platforms, including Facebook and Instagram. But amid the copious correspondence that I reviewed about those platforms, something jumped out at me: repeated queries about another Meta property, WhatsApp, a service designed for private messaging.”

The difference between WhatsApp and social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram is that the latter two entities are public in nature. People share posts that can easily be consumed by users across the world, which means it is easier for Meta, the company that owns WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram, to censor them.

But WhatsApp is a different animal in that the app is used to send private messages to private individuals. It is a tool for direct communication, not messages meant to be shared with the masses. This indicates that the Biden administration was willing to interfere with direct and private communications between individuals, which is an alarming step forward from trying to regulate content posted on public platforms.

Rob Flaherty, the director of Digital Strategy for the White House, was pressing executives at Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp, for details on the steps the company is taking to reduce harmful content on the messaging app. According to sources, Flaherty has been in communication with Meta since as early as March 2021.

In an email correspondence dated March 22, 2021, Flaherty reportedly questioned how the company could determine what types of messages they had successfully reduced if they were unable to see the content themselves. It remains unclear what specific interventions Flaherty was seeking from Meta.

In one exchange, Flaherty asks how Meta executives “know what kinds of messages you’ve cut down on” and “what interventions” the company has taken to “reduce people’s exposure on whatsapp.”

WhatsApp’s structure makes targeted suppression or censorship of certain information difficult. As a result, the company’s content moderation on the messaging app has focused on “pushing” information to users. To this end, WhatsApp has partnered with the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and over 100 governments and health ministries to provide COVID-19 updates and vaccine-related messages to users. The company also created initiatives such as a Spanish-language chatbot to help people make local vaccination appointments.

In another exchange, a Meta employee explained that WhatsApp is used primarily for private messaging, which makes it different from social media. Flaherty acknowledged that he understood this difference, but still pressed for other ways to censor information.

“In particular, he asked about the measures of success, including whether the reduction in forwarded messages was an indicator of the lowering of virality on the platform. He also inquired about any metrics that could be used to measure impact across the company’s various properties.”

Meta has taken steps to ban accounts engaged in mass marketing and scams, including those related to COVID-19 misinformation. To track engagement, the company had implemented proactive measures, such as WhatsApp’s collaboration with governments and non-profit organizations, which resulted in the sending of three billion COVID-19 messages through the messaging service. This was apparently not good enough for Flaherty, who chided the company for not doing enough to suppress “misinformation” on vaccines.

“I care mostly about what actions and changes you’re making to ensure you’re not making our country’s vaccine hesitancy problem worse,” he wrote. “I still don’t have a good, empirical answer on how effective you’ve been at reducing the spread of vaccine-skeptical content and misinformation to vaccine fence sitters.”

The email subject was “WA responses” (WhatsApp responses), and, as a point of comparison, Flaherty referenced Facebook’s algorithm shift during the election to promote “quality news,” and chided Facebook for providing the platform on which – he suggested – the Jan. 6 2021 “insurrection” was, in large part, plotted. But the algorithm shift apparently was then switched off. Flaherty said he wanted assurances that this apparent backing away from content moderation wasn’t also happening on WhatsApp.

As the COVID-19 saga continued to play out, the White House was adamant about pressuring social media to do more to censor opinions on the virus and vaccines that went against the state-approved narrative. In one instance, Biden excoriated Facebook with a highly questionable claim: “They’re killing people,” he said. “Look, the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated, and that – and they’re killing people.”

He later backtracked on these remarks, but the message was sent, nonetheless.

How Much Further Will They Go?

The First Amendment prohibits the state from directly censoring or suppressing speech. It cannot pass laws that prevent Americans from freely expressing their views online or in other settings. But this does not mean that the government does not have the ability to stifle freedom of expression through other means.

The Twitter Files and commentators like Zweig have shown that the government has found a way to subvert the First Amendment and violate the natural rights of individuals who speak out against its narrative. While the nation is distracted by the outrage of the day, the state is working feverishly to exert more authoritarian control on the populace. If there is no outcry from the public, it will continue to succeed in this endeavor.