After recent reports that WhatsApp allegedly listens to its users, Elon Musk himself spoke out against the application. For a tycoon, this tool is “not to be trusted”he assures in a response on Twitter, and this is not the first time he has spoken negatively about Meta services or its top manager.
Elon Musk’s response a few days after he ran into Zuckerberg, describing him as an “extremely biased” person. In turn, both statements came two years after the mogul posted on his Twitter account the message “#DeleteFacebook it’s lame” (delete Facebook, it’s a pity).
But what happens to WhatsApp? According to user Foad Dabiri, a Twitter engineer, the messaging service allegedly used your microphone without permission. “WhatsApp has been using the microphone in the background while I was sleeping and since I woke up at 6am (and this is just part of the graph). What’s going on?” he asks on the social network.
Dabiri is not the only one who has encountered this strange phenomenon. Other users have reported on other platforms that the microphone usage indicator stays on all the time. and WhatsApp is usually the culprit. This is the case of Bikash Mahato who posted his question on the Google forums in March of this year.
“The green dot at the top right of my screen is always on and the microphone is being used by WhatsApp,” he says. Except, warns that the indicator goes away only “after reboot”although it eventually returns after a call via the messaging service.
Elon Musk provoked a Google investigation
Following Musk’s statements on Twitter and the subsequent popularization of Foad Dabiri’s tweet, WhatsApp posted official response. As they comment it’s an android bug which incorrectly attributes information in privacy settings. Thus, they asked Google to launch an investigation to resolve this issue as soon as possible.
In the last 24 hours, we have been contacted by a Twitter engineer who has posted an issue with his Pixel phone and WhatsApp.
We believe this is a bug in Android that causes the information in the privacy bar to be incorrect, and we’ve asked Google to investigate and fix it.
How to prevent WhatsApp from activating the microphone in the background
Most of the messages concerned the use of the microphone in the background of WhatsApp. come from Google Pixel users, including the Pixel 7 series. However, it is not limited to these models as there are complaints from people using Samsung Galaxy devices including the S23 series.
How can we fix this temporarily? Well, there are several ways to prevent WhatsApp from using the microphone in the background, although for real protection we will have to wait for a future update of the service or Android if necessary. Possible Solutions:
- Update the app: After downloading the latest available version of WhatsApp and restarting the mobile phone, some users have reported that the problem is gone.
- Reset whatsapp permissions: Remove and re-grant various permissions used by the service on your mobile phone. Then reboot your device.
Source: Hiper Textual
I am Garth Carter and I work at Gadget Onus. I have specialized in writing for the Hot News section, focusing on topics that are trending and highly relevant to readers. My passion is to present news stories accurately, in an engaging manner that captures the attention of my audience.
