{"id":253811,"date":"2026-05-22T12:53:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T16:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/22\/texas-lawsuit-accuses-meta-whatsapp-of-misleading-users-on-privacy\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T01:45:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T05:45:22","slug":"texas-lawsuit-accuses-meta-whatsapp-of-misleading-users-on-privacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/22\/texas-lawsuit-accuses-meta-whatsapp-of-misleading-users-on-privacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas lawsuit accuses Meta, WhatsApp of misleading users on privacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Texas lawsuit accuses Meta, WhatsApp of misleading users on privacy<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/politics\/articles\/texas-lawsuit-accuses-meta-whatsapp-165339420.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-05-22 12:53:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.yahoo.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton\u00a0filed suit against WhatsApp and its parent company, Meta Platforms Inc., alleging the company misled users of the popular messaging app about whether their encrypted communications are truly inaccessible to Meta.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit, filed in Harrison County, came one day after Paxton\u2019s office opened a separate privacy investigation into the company\u2019s smart glasses, which can record audio and video.<\/p>\n

\u201cMeta has a rich track record of (i) choosing profit and \u2018efficiency\u2019 over meaningful user protections; and (ii) speaking in half-truths (at best) when it comes to reporting breaches or other potentially negative information to the public, investors, and regulators,\u201d states the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit follows Bloomberg reporting on the issue and cites interviews with government officials and a whistleblower complaint to the Securities and Exchange Commission. It also overlaps with allegations in a similar January lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco by plaintiffs from South Africa, Mexico and other countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cTexans deserve to know whether their private communications are indeed truly private,\u201d Paxton said in a news release.<\/p>\n

Paxton\u2019s suit includes no original technical or forensic analysis, but alleges the company is violating the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices\u2013Consumer Protection Act.<\/p>\n

Meta, the parent company of social media platforms Facebook and Instagram, denied the allegations in an emailed statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatsApp cannot access people\u2019s encrypted communications and any suggestion to the contrary is false. We will fight this suit as we continue defending our strong record on protecting people\u2019s messages,\u201d said Rachel Holland of Meta Public Affairs.<\/p>\n

Both lawsuits are heavily concerned with Meta\u2019s past conduct, citing illegal data harvesting done by Cambridge Analytica a decade ago, Federal Trade Commission violations resulting in a consent decree before that, and billions of dollars in fines the company has…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Texas lawsuit accuses Meta, WhatsApp of misleading users on privacy https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/politics\/articles\/texas-lawsuit-accuses-meta-whatsapp-165339420.html Publish Date: 2026-05-22 12:53:00…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":253812,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/RaInSdqj8ez150Fap5F9YA--\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTEyMDA7aD04MDA7Y2Y9d2VicA--\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/austin_american_statesman_hearst_articles_361\/26f53e9bb004a99ebd18ff91b828ffb4","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-253811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-privacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253811"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253811"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":253813,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253811\/revisions\/253813"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}