WhatsApp chief Will Cathcart: the Digital Markets Act could upend encryption, privacy, and product design while increasing spam, misinformation, and hate speech
Will Cathcart has spent two years building a public case that encryption mandates are coming from every direction: his 2021 Q&A covered India's traceability demands and the Facebook-Apple feud, and a later Platformer interview had him defending human review of reported content and encrypted backups. The Digital Markets Act extends that fight into EU law, where interoperability and gatekeeper obligations give regulators direct leverage over how WhatsApp is built.
What makes the DMA intervention notable is that Cathcart is arguing the harm runs through product design itself — not just surveillance risk — claiming mandated changes would open the door to more spam, misinformation, and hate speech on a service whose moderation model already depends on user reports and encrypted backups rather than scanning message content.
First-order effects
Cathcart puts Meta publicly at odds with EU lawmakers before the DMA's obligations are finalized, framing any forced redesign of WhatsApp as a privacy regression the company will resist rather than absorb quietly.
Second-order effects
Rival messengers without WhatsApp's gatekeeper designation gain a relative advantage if DMA rules add friction or compliance costs only to the largest platform — the same asymmetry Cathcart flagged when discussing competing apps in the 2021 interview.
Third-order effects
If Cathcart holds the line he has already drawn elsewhere — refusing to weaken end-to-end encryption under the UK's Online Safety Bill regime — Europe risks a fragmented messaging map where encryption depth varies by jurisdiction, forcing regulators to choose between enforcement and losing the flagship encrypted service.
The trend: End-to-end encryption is becoming the central collision point between national and regional legislation — the UK Online Safety Bill, India's traceability push, and now the EU's Digital Markets Act — with platform chiefs like Cathcart campaigning publicly against each in turn.
No one seems to know exactly what the EU is going to require messaging apps to do to become interoperable. But there's a lot to worry about — I talked to WhatsApp's @wcathcart about some of the big concerns https://www.platformer.news/ ... https://twitter.com/...
Strong conclusions without concluded texts even available (!) Yet: claims the EU not understanding, experts not having been consulted, while there are always public consultations ahead of legislation by the EC, EP, and there's been no lack of lobbying ↘️ https://www.platformer.ne…
Three days into #DMA & already back to US tech writers & Big Tech operatives saying competition & privacy are irreconcilable (that old chestnut) & silly Europeans have no clue & don't talk to real “experts”. Oh the solution “has not been built” YET. So let's do nothing shall we. …
“Writing the law to say ‘You should allow for total interoperability without creating any privacy or security risks’ is like just ordering doctors to cure cancer.” https://www.platformer.news/ ...
@CaseyNewton @wcathcart These are at least good, salient points but it's not different from how voice or text phone service operates now and we don't tolerate AT&T being unable to call Verizon phones, or being unable to email somebody because they're on a Mac vs a PC.
from the group that brought you cookie acceptance dialogs and GDPR cementing the dominance of large players, the EU's latest hit is demanding “total interoperability without creating any privacy or security risks” https://www.platformer.news/ ... @platformer @CaseyNewton
@CaseyNewton @wcathcart For us devs, many of their decisions will create more work for little benefit. As users it may open us up to greater risk. Like GDPR, which was well meaning, has suddenly turned into a nightmare of now having to manage cookies which often trick us into giv…
.@CaseyNewton on EU pols: “It's unclear the extent which regulators realize that [privacy &competition] are often in conflict. But...they are on an absolute collision course, and...the future of end-to-end encryption hangs in the balance.” https://www.platformer.news/ ...
Lol. This entirely overlooks that cookie pop ups predate GDPR and were due to facebook and google lobby's implementation of eprivacy directive and failure to update for GDPR. Any cementing of dominance is due to failure by Facebook and google to properly follow laws. 3/3 https://…