WhatsApp Help Pages Leaked Hidden Instructions for a Meta Chatbot

Dozens of WhatsApp web pages designed to answer people’s questions about Meta’s encrypted messaging app inadvertently exposed the company’s own instructions to its chatbot. These included some sections titled “WHAT NOT TO SAY” to users asking questions and explicit instructions not to provide people with legal advice.

A new analysis has found that around 80 help and FAQ pages across WhatsApp’s website exposed text instructions that were designed for a large language model, specifically one of Meta’s own. 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. 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. He says the company regularly scans the sites and privacy policies of big tech firms, and that many of the WhatsApp instructions the team found were straightforward and point people towards other official support channels. Still, it does not appear the instructions were meant for public exposure.

The exposed instructions appeared under code blocks with a heading: “HelpContentGalaxyLLMInclude.” They are no longer visible in the live pages’ code.