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Show HN: WhatsApp MCP Server

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Re: Show HN: WhatsApp MCP Server

#131

It is crazy how out of touch people on this platform can be. I live in Europe but have been to Asia and South America. People use WhatsApp everywhere. Just because you live in North America where everyone uses SMS/iMessage/whatever doesn't mean everyone does. I can remember my parents scolding me because they got charged for me receiving some SMS. WhatsApp was a gamechanger. You could send messages or pictures withou…

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: WhatsApp MCP Server

#132
post #4

Looks interesting. It would be nice to see something like this for all the communication methods in Beeper unified together. That way all communication is covered rather then just 1 app of many.

Beeper is actually built on top of an open source protocol called Matrix, and they also open sourced all of the bridges, so you can host beeper yourself and connect the LLM to it. And even better - since the protocol is open source, you can also connect to the official Beeper server! You can even use alternative Matrix clients to connect to Beeper, I do this on my company laptop since Beeper is blocked. https://matrix.org/ecosystem/clients/

Re: Show HN: WhatsApp MCP Server

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The people you chat with have an expectation of privacy so this would probably be illegal in many jurisdictions. Name one

Germany. You have a "allgemeines Persönlichkeitsrecht" (general personal rights?) that prevents other people from publishing information that's supposed to be private. Here's a case where someone published a facebook dm for example: https://openjur.de/u/636287.html

So here's the deal with German law on this topic - there's actually a big difference between sharing someone's DM and running LLM tools on social media conversations. The OLG Hamburg case from 2013 (case number 7 W 5/13) establishes that publishing private messages without permission violates your personality rights ("allgemeines Persönlichkeitsrecht"). While we don't have specific LLM court rulings yet, German data protection authorities have been addressing AI technologies under GDPR principles. The Bavarian Data Protection Authority (BayLDA) and the Hamburg Commissioner for Data Protection have both issued opinions that automated AI processing of personal communications requires explicit legal basis under Article 6 GDPR, unlike simple sharing which falls under personality rights law. The German Federal Commissioner for Data Protection (BfDI) has indicated that LLM processing would likely be evaluated based on purpose limitation, data minimization, and transparency requirements. In practice, this means LLM tools could legally process conversations if they implement proper anonymization techniques, provide clear user notices, and follow purpose limitations - conditions not required for the simpler act of sharing a message. The German courts distinguish between publishing content (governed by personality rights) and processing data (governed by data protection law), creating different standards for each activity. While the BGH (Federal Court) hasn't ruled specifically on LLMs, their decisions on automated data processing indicate they would likely allow such processing with appropriate safeguards, whereas unauthorized DM sharing remains almost always prohibited under personality rights jurisprudence regardless of technical implementation.

Re: Show HN: WhatsApp MCP Server

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany. You have a "allgemeines Persönlichkeitsrecht" (general personal rights?) that prevents other people from publishing information that's supposed to be private. Here's a case where someone published a facebook dm for example: https://openjur.de/u/636287.html

So here's the deal with German law on this topic - there's actually a big difference between sharing someone's DM and running LLM tools on social media conversations. The OLG Hamburg case from 2013 (case number 7 W 5/13) establishes that publishing private messages without permission violates your personality rights ("allgemeines Persönlichkeitsrecht"). While we don't have specific LLM court rulings yet, German data…

It sounds like you agree with me that the posted tool would not be legal to use in Germany then? Or am I misreading this comment?

Your initial „name one“ comment sounded like you didn’t believe there would be a jurisdiction where it is illegal.

Re: Show HN: WhatsApp MCP Server

#135
post #23
post #17

I don’t know if whatsmeow was intended for this use case: imagine a LLM performing multiple calls in a short period of time, could you risk to have your whatsapp account blocked by Meta?

Apparently this is the case: https://github.com/tulir/whatsmeow/discussions/199

WhatsApp will ban you if it detect any kind of automation, if you use this or an other wrapper you will -very luckily- get banned, even without making calls. They want you to use their paid business API

Re: Show HN: WhatsApp MCP Server

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So here's the deal with German law on this topic - there's actually a big difference between sharing someone's DM and running LLM tools on social media conversations. The OLG Hamburg case from 2013 (case number 7 W 5/13) establishes that publishing private messages without permission violates your personality rights ("allgemeines Persönlichkeitsrecht"). While we don't have specific LLM court rulings yet, German data…

It sounds like you agree with me that the posted tool would not be legal to use in Germany then? Or am I misreading this comment? Your initial „name one“ comment sounded like you didn’t believe there would be a jurisdiction where it is illegal.

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: WhatsApp MCP Server

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So here's the deal with German law on this topic - there's actually a big difference between sharing someone's DM and running LLM tools on social media conversations. The OLG Hamburg case from 2013 (case number 7 W 5/13) establishes that publishing private messages without permission violates your personality rights ("allgemeines Persönlichkeitsrecht"). While we don't have specific LLM court rulings yet, German data…

It sounds like you agree with me that the posted tool would not be legal to use in Germany then? Or am I misreading this comment? Your initial „name one“ comment sounded like you didn’t believe there would be a jurisdiction where it is illegal.

The so-called expectation of privacy is irrelevant in this context

Re: Show HN: WhatsApp MCP Server

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you agree with me that the posted tool would not be legal to use in Germany then? Or am I misreading this comment? Your initial „name one“ comment sounded like you didn’t believe there would be a jurisdiction where it is illegal.

The so-called expectation of privacy is irrelevant in this context

But it would still be illegal to use? Does the exact mechanism matter?

Re: Show HN: WhatsApp MCP Server

#139
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? It's additional power draw in the midst of an energy transition. It's not currently being used differently. What do you mean what's the problem with that? Also don't forget it's just one of three aspects I can think of off the top of my head. This isn't the only issue with LLMs... Edit: while typing this reply, I remembered a fourth: I've seen many people object morally/ethically to the training method in terms…

If people need additional power, they pay for it. If they want to pay for extra power, why would we gatekeep whether their need is legitimate or not?

Because of the aforementioned shortage. Paying for more power means coal and gas gets spun up since there aren't enough renewables, and the externalities aren't being paid for by those people

I'm also happy to have them pay for the full cleanup cost rather than discourage useless consumption, but somehow people don't seem to think crazy energy prices are a great idea either

Also you're still very focused on this one specific issue rather than looking at the bigger picture. Not sure if the conversation is going anywhere like this

Re: Show HN: WhatsApp MCP Server

#140
post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people need additional power, they pay for it. If they want to pay for extra power, why would we gatekeep whether their need is legitimate or not?

Because of the aforementioned shortage. Paying for more power means coal and gas gets spun up since there aren't enough renewables, and the externalities aren't being paid for by those people I'm also happy to have them pay for the full cleanup cost rather than discourage useless consumption, but somehow people don't seem to think crazy energy prices are a great idea either Also you're still very focused on this one…

What's the bigger picture? You said "power usage", "to what purpose?" (you kind of don't get a say in whether I use an LLM to reply to you, though you're free to stop talking to me), and "objections to the training method", which doesn't really seem relevant to the use case, but more of a general objection to LLMs.
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