Quick Take

As WhatsApp Evolves — Now With Ads — So Should the Rules That Govern It

June 26, 2025

Meta has long salivated at the prospect of monetizing WhatsApp, an application originally meant for private chats that now serves more than 2 billion users worldwide. Meta took that leap last Monday, announcing that it will begin displaying ads in WhatsApp’s “status” feature, found under the “updates” tab.

This development nudges WhatsApp further into the realm of social media, eroding its core identity as a secure, private messaging platform.

Regulators should take notice.

From Private Messaging to Social Networking

The “status” feature, akin to Instagram or Snapchat “stories,” already signaled a shift toward a more public, broadcast-style experience. That trajectory has only accelerated: WhatsApp now allows group chats of up to 1,024 participants and offers “communities” that can link up to 100 group chats under one umbrella.

Today, it is more accurate to describe WhatsApp as a social networking platform with private messaging functionalities – and it should be regulated accordingly. Beyond encrypted chats, WhatsApp’s features include public “channels” for one-to-many broadcasting, a generative AI chatbot, and a business interface for enterprises to reach thousands of customers.

A Regulatory Blind Spot

Multiple online safety laws and regulatory frameworks seem to exempt WhatsApp from key obligations, relying on the company’s self-description as a private messaging service. First insights from the work of the Forum on Information and Democracy’s workstream on the topic indicate that private messaging platforms are a regulatory blindspot. This is a mistake. Policymakers need to examine WhatsApp — and similar apps like Telegram — not as singular entities but as bundles of features, some of which (like “channels”) warrant oversight.

Privacy Concerns

WhatsApp’s inclusion of ads also raises urgent questions about its privacy assurances. While the contents of messages remain end-to-end encrypted, WhatsApp collects extensive metadata — information about messages, users, and behavior — rather than the content itself.

The company has justified this by citing the need to combat spam and terrorism. But its privacy policy also permits sharing metadata with its parent company, Meta, for “showing relevant offers and ads across the Meta Company Products.”

With ads now entering the app directly, the incentive to fully exploit that metadata for ad targeting purposes has never been greater. Privacy advocates are right to be alarmed.

It’s a legitimate business decision for Meta to seek to monetize WhatsApp — after all, it’s a private corporation. But the company must be transparent, both in how it brands the platform and in how it discloses its data tracking and monetization practices.

At the same time, regulators must keep pace with WhatsApp’s evolution from a private messaging app into something much closer to a social media platform. Failing to acknowledge this shift risks leaving serious privacy and safety concerns unaddressed.