# WhatsApp Account Blocked **URL:** https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/whatsapp-account-blocked/18508 **Category:** Questions **Created:** 2024-05-25T08:51:10Z **Posts:** 24 ## Post 1 by @klasmeister — 2024-05-25T08:51:10Z Good morning! Not sure whether this post is relevant but I thought I’d share in case anyone finds this interesting. For some inexplicable reason, my WhatsApp account has been blocked this morning (see attached screenshot). The only thing I changed recently (or indeed ever) was that I moved it from iOS to GrapheneOS. I’ve been using the account with this number since 2010 (i.e. pretty much since Day 1). My usage has not really changed over the last 14 years and it is fairly limited anyway, centred about school groups and family members who refuse to use Signal. Not sure what to make of it really but thought worth sharing.. ![Screenshot_20240525-084406](//forum-uploads.privacyguidesusercontent.com/original/2X/5/5a85e37537806999f1a50ba6acaa887f70dd08e3.png) --- ## Post 2 by @anon73250778 — 2024-05-25T09:07:48Z The cynical and probably true reason is that it lost the ability to harvest a lot of data points going to a hardened phone. Instead of saying so plainly, they play coy and say its because you are now a spammer account (apparently real humans dont use Graphene OS) --- ## Post 3 by @Pragmatic — 2024-05-25T09:49:47Z I’ve been on GOS for years and haven’t had any problems with Whatsapp since, surely it must have done something or someone reported it as SPAM? --- ## Post 4 by @klasmeister — 2024-05-25T10:29:10Z Very odd though as my number is not in wide circulation and I only use WhatsApp with a very small number of people. --- ## Post 5 by @klasmeister — 2024-05-25T10:56:09Z When clicking on the message, it says that “WhatsApp Support will review your account and device info to check for activity that does not follow our terms of service.” If messages really are E2EE, how is that even possible? --- ## Post 6 by @Stiffly2505 — 2024-05-25T11:00:15Z Reporting someone’s message sends the key to WhatsApp. In addition to that, they also see your device info (obviously), and metadata (who you messaged and when). None of this is a secret, it’s all outlined in the Privacy Policy. --- ## Post 7 by @lepras — 2024-05-25T12:17:37Z This happened to me as well in GOS work profile, I just wrote “hey I don’t know what happened, and this account is very important to me, pl. Look into the matter” and it started working after ~1 day. --- ## Post 8 by @klasmeister — 2024-05-25T12:39:04Z Thanks so much. That’s exactly what I did. Will keep you posted. It is worrying however that they can use this avenue to get the key. In theory, any employee could then report anyone, which hands over the key to Meta.. --- ## Post 9 by @pika — 2024-05-25T13:14:42Z Probably they don’t want people to use whatsapp in an anonymous way, as if phone number wasn’t enough for them. As earlier pointed out a phone with google services running gives them more information on the user. If they don’t get that info , probably they are gonna flag it. Thanks for the headsup. --- ## Post 10 by @Stiffly2505 — 2024-05-25T13:29:25Z … what? The key is on the phone. If you press the report button, it sends to WhatsApp. If a Meta employee has physical access to your phone, you should have bigger concerns than them pressing the report button. This is not a privacy issue, because whoever reports could’ve also just screenshotted it. The only extra thing the reports provide is provability towards WhatsApp. --- ## Post 11 by @klasmeister — 2024-05-25T13:47:11Z I think I misunderstood you. I thought you said when someone reports me that this will give Meta access to my key, which I found very worrying as it would be very easy to abuse. I have not reported anyone. I woke up to a locked WhatsApp for reasons unbeknownst to me. I never said anything about anyone having physical access to my phone. --- ## Post 12 by @Stiffly2505 — 2024-05-25T14:02:08Z You’re confused about keys. Each conversation has a key. Reporting someone will provide the key for the conversation between you and them to Meta. You were asking about how can they possibly check the “activity” if it’s E2EE. That’s how. If someone (accidentally or intentionally) reported you for spamming, Meta is able to read your conversation with them, and decide whether such a report was valid. --- ## Post 13 by @Pragmatic — 2024-05-25T14:08:21Z Yes, I’ve read that in the event of a report, Whatsapp has access to the last 3 or 5 messages exchanged for verification and I even believe that of their own free will they can contact the police. No wonder when Signal is banned in some countries, Whatsapp isn’t! --- ## Post 14 by @klasmeister — 2024-05-25T14:09:15Z Got it. I thought you were referring to the key that is generated when enabling encrypted backups. Consequently, I was assuming that when someone reports me and Meta gets access to said key, they would have access to all of my conversations. Thank you for clarifying, this makes a lot more sense. --- ## Post 15 by @Register3435 — 2024-05-25T16:08:12Z I wouldn’t ascribe it to malicious reasons to be honest. I had my account be locked in a constant cycle once of blocking and unblocking because I was trying to log into the Windows desktop app… More likely than not, whatever automated system they use for detecting spam is just not that good. --- ## Post 16 by @klasmeister — 2024-05-25T20:05:36Z Update: Account is functional again. No comment or reply of any sort. --- ## Post 17 by @Pragmatic — 2024-05-25T20:19:50Z I’m thinking about it, but to encourage people around me to switch to Signal, maybe I should flag certain messages to force an account block and thus get them to come to Signal. :thinking: --- ## Post 18 by @klasmeister — 2024-05-25T20:21:49Z Haha, this morning’s episode helped me to finally get my mother to switch to Signal. --- ## Post 19 by @lepras — 2024-05-26T02:58:45Z > [@Pragmatic](#): > > come to Signal I have shifted my family atleast but need to get a burner whatsapp for the time being lol. Also signal is a messenger, can’t do telegram lvl group management there.:sob: Maybe matrix someday. --- ## Post 20 by @brivacy — 2024-05-26T14:32:42Z Use signal --- ## Post 21 by @dumpster — 2024-05-26T20:24:28Z > [@Register3435](#): > > More likely than not, whatever automated system they use for detecting spam is just not that good. I agree. Either one of your contacts flagged you as a spammer (perhaps a simple misclick) or an automated system flagged you. Louis Rossmann has been raising the alarm on youtube’s moderation demonstrating the unreliability and false-positives of AI moderation. --- ## Post 22 by @xe3 — 2024-05-26T21:12:22Z > [@klasmeister](#): > > When clicking on the message, it says that “WhatsApp Support will review your account and device info to check for activity that does not follow our terms of service.” If messages really are E2EE, how is that even possible? Message _content_ is E2EE, metadata is for the most part not protected or encrypted with Whatsapp afaik. And for purposes of anti-spam/abuse, I would suspect that metadata could be as useful or more useful than the content itself. Also there is this: > Reporting someone’s message sends ~~the key~~ [forwards the most recent messages in that thread] to WhatsApp. Though my understanding on [how this ^ works](https://faq.whatsapp.com/414631957536067/?locale=en_US) is a bit different than @Stiffly2505. My understanding is that _If (and only if)_ a participant in the conversation reports a message to Whatsapp, then Whatsapp will receive: > _“the last five messages sent to [to the user who made the report] by the reported user or group, and they won’t be notified. WhatsApp also receives the reported group or user ID, information on when the message was sent, and the type of message sent (image, video, text, etc.)”_ My understanding is that it is conceptually like the reporting user _forwards_ to Whatsapp the most recent (5) messages in the conversation. I don’t think Whatsapp would actually need your key because the other party to the conversation (the one who reported you) has access to the conversation on their end as well and they are choosing to share it. Whatsapp is admittedly light on the technical [details](https://faq.whatsapp.com/414631957536067/?locale=en_US) of this process, but this is how I understand it would work. I believe [this investigative piece](https://www.propublica.org/article/how-facebook-undermines-privacy-protections-for-its-2-billion-whatsapp-users) by Propublica is the original source for some of this info, I’m not motivated enough to reread it, but you may be interested in doing so. --- ## Post 23 by @Stiffly2505 — 2024-05-26T21:27:46Z There is no “your key” and “their key”, the messages have exactly one symmetric key. And that is forwarded and not the message contents to keep provability (ie that the reporting client didn’t just make up the decrypted message contents) as otherwise you could just falsify reports. --- ## Post 24 by @xe3 — 2024-05-26T21:55:34Z Do you have a source for this information, particularly: > Reporting someone will provide the key for the conversation between you and them to Meta. I couldn’t find mention of this in the [docs](https://faq.whatsapp.com/414631957536067/?helpref=hc_fnav), [ToS](https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/terms-of-service), or [Privacy Policy](https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/privacy-policy), but I only skimmed + keyword searched. If there is more info on this, I’d really like to learn more, because it seems like an important distinction (whether the exposure is limited to _last 5 messages_ versus limite to _all_ of your communication with that person or group)