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People on X had a meltdown of epic proportions after messaging app WhatsApp’s official account posted a joke on Elon Musk-owned social media platform. It was a harmless take on folks ending their messages by using a “lol”, short for “laugh out loud”. The chat app posted: “people who end messages with “lol” we see you, we honor you”. The post received more exposure and eyeballs than the WhatsApp account’s admin had ever anticipated, and then, all hell broke loose. But why? For a simple reason that WhatsApp prides itself on providing encryption for chats, calls, and file transfer. So how do they know what people are typing in their private chats? Outrage lol It became from the get-go that WhatsApp’s well-intentioned joke had fallen flat on its head given the sheer number of views and responses it received in a span of few hours. “”we see you”? How? What happens to chat encrypted?” wrote one X user. ““We’re listening?” “There’s a gray area in terms of our data collection… it seems we are sometimes listening quite aggressively”” byebye intern pic.twitter.com/8zrMkjrRTF — openthefridge ❄️ (@openthefridge) October 29, 2025 I know Zuck can read our chats but I just can’t prove it yet pic.twitter.com/UOHE8OEEcp — sid (@immasiddx) October 30, 2025 Some went ahead and blamed the “intern” whom they wondered was the culprit behind the unflattering joke. They’re going to murder the intern that posted this https://t.co/HIHc4ODpP9 — vas (@vasuman) October 30, 2025 WhatsApp Was Cooked Things got so out of proportion that WhatsApp did the unimaginable. The messaging app sat and dissected the joke for the irked users. “your personal messages are private between you and the recipient. “we see you” in our original post was meant as a way to say we relate to and understand people who love to use lol as a way to end a message, (sic)” wrote WhatsApp in response. Also Read: How GenZ Is Combating Toxic Work Culture, One WhatsApp Message At A Time “we meant “we see you” figuratively lol (see what we did there?)” your personal messages are protected by end-to-end encryption and no one, not even WhatsApp, can see them, (sic)” the chat app clarified in yet another response to angered X user. WhatsApp’s heart may have been in the right place, but its vision wasn’t. People on Reddit, in a post dated seven years ago, explained why they felt the need to use “lol” at the end of their sentences. “I do it when texting if im afraid the other person might take what im texting as too serious or not as a joke (sic).” “Lol is to show the text isn’t aggressive more often than it’s used as intended.” Are you the “haha” person? “In my experience, people who end sentences with “haha” even when it’s not funny are the friends that stay around your house after all the rest of your buddies leave, cause they have nothing else to do.” Also Read: WhatsApp Now Lets You Backup Encrypted Chats With Passkey: How It Works WhatsApp Chat Backups Encrypted Getting back to serious business, WhatsApp is introducing an enhanced tool for users to better control chat and media storage. Currently in testing, this feature lets you view the exact space consumed by each conversation in your account. Previously, the app only offered a summary overview for managing storage, which was useful but lacked insights into which specific files were occupying the most room.
