EU Tightens Oversight of WhatsApp; Elon Musk Questions App’s Security
EU Tightens Oversight of WhatsApp; Elon Musk Questions App’s Security
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The European Commission has designated Meta’s WhatsApp platform as a “very large online platform” after its Channels feature surpassed 45 million monthly active users in the European Union, bringing it under stricter content rules under the Digital Services Act (DSA).
This designation means WhatsApp must now comply with enhanced obligations to assess and mitigate systemic risks, including those related to human rights, privacy and illegal content, with tighter EU oversight of its operations and reporting requirements.
Under the DSA, platforms of this scale face rigorous content moderation and transparency duties as the bloc seeks to better regulate digital services that influence public discourse and protect users in the EU.
In a separate but related development, Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk has publicly criticized WhatsApp’s security, amid a US lawsuit alleging that Meta misled users about the privacy of its “end‑to‑end encryption.” Musk urged users to switch to X Chat—a messaging service associated with his X platform—claiming WhatsApp is “not secure” and suggesting even other secure messengers could be questionable, though Meta rejects these claims.
Meta and WhatsApp leadership have strongly defended their encryption protocols, asserting that end‑to‑end encryption means only participants can read messages and that the accusations are unfounded.
