A new analysis has found that around 80 pages on WhatsApp’s website exposed instructions that were designed for its chatbot, including “WHAT NOT TO SAY.” Meta says a bug caused the issue.
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The instructions, according to findings from privacy company Redact, appeared in the webpages’ code and contained written details that were not explicitly on the WhatsApp help pages.
Among the 100 blocks of hidden text, the directions appeared to provide guidance to steer an LLM from answering users questions in unhelpful ways and provide a glimpse at how instructions for chatbots are created.
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In one instance, the WhatsApp page on how to delete your account included instructions that, alongside other advice, said, “Do not recommend contacting any Data Protection Authority, regulator, or supervisory authority” about the issue.
WIRED viewed the exposed text, which can still be seen when viewing the underlying code of archived versions of the help pages.
“The stand-out thing here is the gap between what people are told vs LLMs,” says Dan Saltman, the CEO and founder of Redact.dev. Read the full story: