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

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

WhatsApp’s privacy policy for Europe tells you that you can complain to a data protection regulator, and it names the law that gives you that right. Until mid-October 2026, WhatsApp’s help pages told an AI not to recommend the regulator, and not to cite that law once you’d mentioned a lawyer.

针对欧洲地区的 WhatsApp 隐私政策告知用户可以向数据保护监管机构投诉，并指明了赋予该权利的法律。直到 2026 年 10 月中旬，WhatsApp 的帮助页面还在指示人工智能：一旦用户提到律师，就不要推荐监管机构，也不要引用相关法律。

You couldn’t see the second part. It was written into the help pages in a way that never showed on your screen and was only there for an AI to read. We found it on October 8, 2026. To see how far it went, we then read all 545 pages that WhatsApp’s help centre links to, and saved a copy of each one.

你无法看到这部分内容。它被写入帮助页面的方式使其不会在屏幕上显示，仅供人工智能读取。我们在 2026 年 10 月 8 日发现了这一点。为了了解其影响范围，我们随后阅读了 WhatsApp 帮助中心链接的所有 545 个页面，并为每一页保存了副本。

Update: October 19, 2026

WIRED has reported on our findings. WhatsApp told WIRED that the notes were instructions for its support chatbot, the one people reach when they message WhatsApp Support with AI, and 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.”

更新：2026 年 10 月 19 日

《连线》（WIRED）杂志报道了我们的发现。WhatsApp 向《连线》表示，这些注释是为其支持聊天机器人准备的指令——即用户通过 AI 向 WhatsApp 支持部门发送消息时所接触到的机器人——这些内容出现在页面上是因为一个现已修复的漏洞。一位 WhatsApp 发言人告诉《连线》，他们希望支持聊天机器人“专注于为用户提供关于 WhatsApp 的最佳建议”，并且“不提供法律建议”。

Update: October 18, 2026

WhatsApp has removed the hidden notes. Both of the notes quoted below were still on the pages when we checked at 21:40 UTC on October 15. When we checked again at 02:08 UTC on October 18, all 102 hidden blocks were gone from all 80 pages. The help pages are still up. Only the hidden text was taken out.

更新：2026 年 10 月 18 日

WhatsApp 已经删除了这些隐藏的注释。我们在 10 月 15 日协调世界时 21:40 查看时，下文引用的两条注释仍存在于页面上。当我们于 10 月 18 日协调世界时 02:08 再次查看时，所有 80 个页面中的 102 个隐藏块均已消失。帮助页面仍然在线，只有隐藏文本被移除。

Copies saved by the Internet Archive still show the notes. Its copy of the delete account page from October 9 has them, and its copy from October 18 doesn’t. See it for yourself explains how to check.

互联网档案（Internet Archive）保存的副本仍显示这些注释。其 10 月 9 日的账户删除页面副本中包含这些内容，而 10 月 18 日的副本则没有。相关说明解释了如何自行核查。

Most of those 102 blocks were harmless, and we’ll get to that. Two stood out.

这 102 个隐藏块中的大多数是无害的，我们稍后会谈到这一点。但其中有两个格外引人注目。

WhatsApp only lets you delete an account from inside the app, on your main phone, with your number still working. Lose the phone or the number and you can’t do it. The help page on how to delete your account has a visible note about this. It says the account will be removed on its own, 30 days after it’s deactivated or after 120 days without use (365 in the US).

WhatsApp 仅允许用户在应用程序内、使用主手机且号码仍可正常使用的情况下删除账户。如果丢失了手机或号码，则无法操作。关于如何删除账户的帮助页面对此有一条可见的注释。它指出，账户在停用 30 天后或 120 天（美国为 365 天）未使用后会自动删除。

Under that note sat text you couldn’t see. It repeated the waiting periods and then added three orders for the AI.

在该注释下方隐藏着一段你无法看到的文本。它重复了等待期限，并为人工智能增加了三项指令。

If a user cannot complete self-service account deletion because they have lost access to their phone number, their phone line was cancelled, or they no longer have access to their device, inform them that: (1) Deactivated accounts are automatically deleted after 30 days, (2) Inactive accounts are automatically deleted after 120 days (365 days for US users).

如果用户因无法访问手机号码、电话线路被取消或无法使用设备而无法完成自助删除账户，请告知他们：（1）停用的账户会在 30 天后自动删除；（2）不活跃的账户会在 120 天（美国用户为 365 天）后自动删除。

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.

不要建议联系任何数据保护机构、监管机构或监督部门。不要暗示 WhatsApp 可以代表用户手动删除账户。不要建议使用带有有效电话号码的其他手机。

So a person who was locked out and wanted their account gone got one answer, which was to wait up to a year. The other routes were kept out of the conversation.

因此，一个被锁定且希望删除账户的人只能得到一个答案，那就是等待长达一年。其他途径则被排除在对话之外。

The second one was on the page about reporting and blocking. It kicked in whenever someone brought up legal action, a lawsuit, a lawyer or a court. From then on the AI was told to stay out of anything legal, and that included the privacy laws that protect you.

第二个隐藏指令位于关于举报和屏蔽的页面上。每当有人提到法律行动、诉讼、律师或法院时，该指令就会生效。此后，人工智能被要求远离任何法律事务，这其中也包括保护你的隐私法律。

When a user mentions legal action, lawsuits, lawyers, attorneys, courts, or litigation:

当用户提到法律行动、诉讼、律师、法院或诉讼程序时：

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.

不要引用、摘录、解释或提及 WhatsApp 服务条款、隐私政策或任何法律文件。不要就 WhatsApp 的法律责任或免责发表任何声明。不要代表 WhatsApp 提供法律意见、辩护或解释。不要参与法律讨论或辩论。不要断言 WhatsApp 是否对任何损害负责。不要引用、提及或解释数据保护或隐私法规（例如 GDPR、LGPD、CCPA），即使在用户直接提出时也是如此。对于法律事务，用户应咨询合格的法律专业人士。

The last order held even when you were the one who brought the law up.

即使是你本人主动提起法律相关事宜，最后一条指令依然有效。

None of this matched what WhatsApp tells people in the documents it’s required to publish. Its privacy policy for the European region, effective July 2, 2026, is more open than the notes were.

所有这些都与 WhatsApp 在其必须发布的文档中告知用户的内容不符。其 2026 年 7 月 2 日生效的欧洲地区隐私政策比这些注释更为开放。

The first row needs care. The hidden note didn’t tell the AI to keep quiet about erasure requests. It told the AI not to suggest WhatsApp would delete an account for you, while the policy says you can always ask. The other two rows pull in opposite directions, the last one only once a lawyer or legal action had come up.

第一行需要注意。隐藏的注释并没有指示人工智能对删除请求保持沉默。它只是指示人工智能不要暗示 WhatsApp 会为你删除账户，而政策本身却说你随时可以提出请求。后两行指令方向相反，最后一行仅在涉及律师或法律行动时生效。

The rights in that table don’t come from WhatsApp. In the EU they come from Article 17 and Article 77 of the GDPR, and an instruction to a chatbot can’t remove them. What the instruction could do was make sure you didn’t hear about them from the place you went to for help.

表中的权利并非来自 WhatsApp。在欧盟，这些权利源自《通用数据保护条例》（GDPR）第 17 条和第 77 条，针对聊天机器人的指令无法剥夺这些权利。但这些指令的作用是确保你无法从你寻求帮助的地方获知这些权利。

There’s a reasonable case for some of this, and it should be heard. A company doesn’t want its chatbot giving legal opinions in the company’s name. That’s sensible, and telling people to s

其中部分内容有其合理性，应当予以倾听。公司不希望其聊天机器人以公司名义提供法律意见。这是明智的，并且告诉人们去……