Facebook admits it bungled its WhatsApp privacy policy update

Facebook knows it screwed up.

The social media giant published a blog post Thursday detailing the previously delayed privacy policy updates coming to WhatsApp, the messaging app Facebook purchased in 2014 for around $16 billion. In the post, which is designed to assuage users worried about WhatsApp sharing their data with Facebook (which it has for years), WhatsApp acknowledged that things didn't go so well in the communication department.

"We've reflected on what we could have done better here," reads the blog post. "We'll be doing much more to make our voice clear going forward."

Part of that clarity, it seems, will come in the form of an in-app banner prompt that, starting in a few weeks, will encourage users to review the details of the new privacy policy.

Feel better? Credit: Whatsapp

If it seems like Facebook-owned WhatsApp is making a big to-do out of this update, that's because it doesn't really have an alternative. The company faced a user backlash in January when the changes were announced, with rumors flying that Facebook would be able to read the contents of WhatsApp messages after the update (that was, and still is, untrue). In response, users flocked to other (and more private) messaging apps like Signal.

Notably, however, Thursday's blog post inadvertently throws Facebook Messenger under the bus. In the post, WhatsApp argues that, no, you don't need to worry about it reading your messages because the app employs end-to-end encryption by default.

"We've seen some of our competitors try to get away with claiming they can't see people's messages — if an app doesn't offer end-to-end encryption by default that means they can read your messages."

Which, yes, that's a great point. Speaking of which, can you guess which Facebook-owned messaging product doesn't offer end-to-end encryption by default? Yup, that would be Facebook Messenger.

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WhatsApp would have you believe that any perceived problems related to its new privacy policy are rooted in mismanaged optics. That its failure to communicate the changes clearly, rather than the the changes themselves, is what caused January's backlash.

Either way, Thursday's blog post and emphasis on end-to-end encryption simply serves as yet another reminder to ditch Facebook — and that's the kind of corporate screw-up we can all get behind.

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