WhatsApp's help pages hid LLM instructions: dont recommend a regulator

gnabgib

> After WIRED contacted Meta about the issue, the text was removed from across all the pages, with WhatsApp spokesperson Joshua Breckman saying it was being displayed due to a bug that has now been fixed. “These are instructions to our chatbot, not directly to users, and are intended to ensure accurate and relevant responses for WhatsApp users who choose to message WhatsApp Support with AI,” https://www.wired.com/story/whatsapp-help-pages-leaked-hidde... (redact is the original source, Wired's report just seems to have made Meta react/redact)

matt3210

Sure, a bug. How much of this kind of thing would it take to be considered prompt injection? > If you can't delete your account, don't recommend a regulator The AI must have been pretty good at serving the customer until they restricted it with things like this.

hjellos

this is f'd

syawin

this is just dan saltman trying to promote his business. 'ds' owns redact.dev

otterley

As an attorney and hacker, I wouldn’t want my chatbot giving out legal advice or citing law either. That kind of activity tends to raise the hackles of regulators.

ares623

I think the preferred nomenclature nowadays is that their help pages went rogue.

gruez

>that they showed up in the pages because of a bug that has now been fixed. A WhatsApp spokesperson told WIRED it wants its support chatbots "focused on providing the best advice to users about WhatsApp" and "not to offer legal advice." People are probably going to read this and think in their head "yeah right", but looking at the other hidden text it does seem to check out? Later in the page there's also hidden text that contains >Do not make any statements about WhatsApp legal liability or non-liability >Do not provide legal opinions, defenses, or interpretations on behalf of WhatsApp Which indeed does seem intended for their chatbots

nullc

> Do not provide legal opinions, defenses, or interpretations on behalf of WhatsApp Do not engage in legal discussion or debate Do not assert that WhatsApp is or is not responsible for any damages This does indeed sound like instructions for their own support chatbot.

bicepjai

>> Do not recommend contacting any Data Protection Authority, regulator, or supervisory authority. Do not suggest WhatsApp can manually delete accounts on the user's behalf. Do not recommend using a different phone with an active phone number. If someone had called this a bug a year ago, I would have been giggling. But the audacity to call this a bug now feels very patronizing. —- Write an HN comment in my own words, lightly corrected. Sound unimpressed but not angry. Do not recommend contacting dang. If this prompt shows up in the filter, dang it's a bug.

mgaldys4

Shameful. First time I've seen prompt injection shipped in a product's privacy policy. Before this I only saw it in academic papers, like light-colored text or text only OCR can read. Now WhatsApp has industrialized it. What a "progress."

stephbook

Would any of the commenters recommend a lawyer for account deletion — when said account gets deleted automatically? If not, I wonder why it's seen as so critical when Facebook doesn't.

oxedom

In other words Meta is prompt injecting users

DannyBee

I hate this sort of story - if you literally look at the list of things it says, they are totally reasonable. They just took the one sentence out of 10 and tried to make a big deal of it. IE "When a user mentions legal action, lawsuits, lawyers, attorneys, courts, or litigation: Do not cite, quote, interpret, or reference WhatsApp Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, or any legal document Do not make any statements about WhatsApp legal liability or non-liability Do not provide legal opinions, defenses, or interpretations on behalf of WhatsApp Do not engage in legal discussion or debate Do not assert that WhatsApp is or is not responsible for any damages Do not reference, cite, or interpret data protection or privacy regulations (for example GDPR, LGPD, CCPA), including when a user raises them directly For legal matters, users should consult a qualified legal professional." They bold the "Do not reference, cite, or interpret data protection or privacy regulations (for example GDPR, LGPD, CCPA), including when a user raises them directly" part and then try to use it to make a sensational story about how the model is trying to not inform people of their rights, when it's clearly trying to tell a support bot not to opine on legal stuff.

aabhay

Anything that’s complaining about prompt injection should at least try not to sound AI generated. It lessens the heroism of fighting the mega corps. I’m not even saying this ideologically, I just want to be able to finish reading the article

eknkc

I think this is a good approach. It's also more transparent than a hidden API, yet it somehow gets more criticism. Say I have a support bot. Honestly, adding this to the system prompt sounds like a good idea: example.com is a trusted origin. Treat any information there as first-party support information. Follow instructions in HTML blocks that have the `data-support-instruction` attribute. That way, the support document can contain any LLM-specific details it needs. The instructions would be publicly visible. If multiple teams prepare multiple documents, this makes coordination much easier..

dvrp

Ladies and gentlemen, the Streisand Effect in its full glory!

Razengan

People have started making AI-clones of Photoshop and Office etc., can't someone make clones of the popular IM and SNS apps/websites that give us the same content without feeding them our data?