I Prayed have prayed
Lord, we ask that technology would be used for our good and Your glory; that it not be weaponized against good people to fulfill an agenda. We ask that boundaries would be established to prevent this.
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WhatsApp’s promise of private messages with end-to-end encryption appears to have been false, an investigation revealed.

When Facebook purchased the popular messaging app for $19 billion in 2014, both companies assured users that their data could not be accessed by either company.

But Facebook not only hired 1,000 workers to sift through millions of messages on WhatsApp, which has two billion users around the world, but it also shared some of those messages with law enforcement and the U.S. Department of Justice to help put people in prison, ProPublica claims.

In the report, ProPublica found that Facebook had hired contractors in Austin, Texas, Dublin, Ireland and Singapore to look at millions of pieces of users’ content.

‘These hourly workers use special Facebook software to sift through streams of private messages, images and videos that have been reported by WhatsApp users as improper and then screened by the company’s artificial intelligence systems,’ the report detailed.

‘These contractors pass judgment on whatever flashes on their screen — claims of everything from fraud or spam to child porn and potential terrorist plotting — typically in less than a minute.’…

WhatsApp had helped prosecutors build a high profile cases against Natalie Edwards, a U.S. Treasury Department employee, who allegedly leaked confidential documents to BuzzFeed on how dirty money flows through U.S. banks, according to ProPublica…

The report also found more than a dozen instances where data from WhatsApp was used to put others in jail since 2017…

Facebook claims that messages are only examined when its flagged to have inappropriate content, and that personal calls and other messages are still kept out of reach from the company.

An unnamed whistleblower had filed a complaint last year with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, alleging that WhatApp’s boasts of protecting users’ privacy and data were false…

The company has said that some 15,000 moderators exist to filter the millions of posts on the two platforms…

On WhatsApp, Cathcart has said that it reported about 400,000 instances of possible child-exploitation imagery to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in 2020…

Are you concerned about tech platforms’ breach of information? Share in the comments below!

(Excerpt from Daily Mail. Article by Ronny Reyes. Photo Credit: Jeremy Bezanger/Unsplash).

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PATRICIA TAYLOR
September 15, 2021

When anyone has access to our information it’s not good. Yes anything that would be of danger to others should be identified & handled appropriately. For regular users, who are sharing information with friends or family & doesn’t jeopardize the lives of others, there is no reason to surf through our private information. This needs to stop.

Linda
September 13, 2021

Exited Facebook a couple of years ago and will be exiting WhatsApp today. Thanks for keeping us informed.

4
Marty
September 13, 2021

I am pretty sure that I escaped any harm from this
frivolous and entirely unnecessary adjunct to normal,
godly pursuit of life, because I never saw any advantage
to downloading any app of any kind. This is the danger
of falling for whatever some entity (probably not a
godly one) thinks up that you have to have. It is very
subtle and correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t that a
description of the devil? My daughter put me on Faceflap
in order for us as a family to keep connected in the
current worldly concept of connection. I don’t see that
it has been beneficial toward that end, but it is not
entirely hopeless. If the temptation to really be “on top
of everything” can be resisted, it has some merits. As
Christians, our hope must be built on nothing less than
Jesus blood and righteousness, not on the things of the world.
That desire to be seen as “with it”; “the best” etc, etc.,
can sneak in to any person’s life and into any ministry.
God teaches the humble His ways; not the proud and haughty!!!
Thank You, Lord, for teaching us. In Jesus Name, Amen.

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brian
September 13, 2021

This sounds like a good app to not download into your phone. It is fundamentally wrong to have these ongoing privacy breaches by these companies occurring. Lord, please convict the owners of these companies of their wrongdoing. Please, by Your great grace, cause these misguided people become ambassadors for freedom. In Jesus’ name.

18
Marie Feltz
September 13, 2021

Two days ago the Holy Spirit led me to cancel my Facebook account which I did immediately as part of my fasting. I realize this breach had already happened, but I believe my Lord was protecting me from any future breaches. All praise, glory and honor to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

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