{"id":416295,"date":"2026-02-09T14:41:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T14:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/416295\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T14:41:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T14:41:07","slug":"eu-threatens-to-act-over-meta-blocking-rival-ai-chatbots-from-whatsapp-ai-artificial-intelligence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/416295\/","title":{"rendered":"EU threatens to act over Meta blocking rival AI chatbots from WhatsApp | AI (artificial intelligence)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The EU has threatened to take action against the social media company Meta<\/a>, arguing it has blocked rival chatbots from using its WhatsApp messaging platform.<\/p>\n

The European Commission said<\/a> on Monday that WhatsApp Business \u2013 which is designed to be used by businesses to interact with customers \u2013 appears to be in breach of EU antitrust rules.<\/p>\n

An upgrade to the messaging platform last October means the only AI assistant available to use on WhatsApp is Meta AI, the agent developed by the US tech group, which also owns Facebook and Instagram.<\/p>\n

The European Commission<\/a> said Meta was the dominant player for messaging in the EU market and was \u201cabusing\u201d this position by \u201crefusing access to WhatsApp to other businesses\u201d.<\/p>\n

That position may cause \u201cserious and irreparable harm on the market\u201d, the commission added. It said it \u201cconsiders that WhatsApp is an important entry point\u201d for AI chatbots such as OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT, to \u201creach consumers\u201d.<\/p>\n

The warning comes amid heightened tension between European authorities and Donald Trump\u2019s administration over the regulation of US tech companies. Brussels is reportedly<\/a> preparing to intensify enforcement of its key anti-competition rules and the Trump administration has said<\/a> this is \u201cdiscriminatory\u201d against US companies.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is very obvious that we need to defend, to implement and to enforce our rules, to defend our market, a well-functioning market,\u201d the EU competition commissioner, Teresa Ribera, told Bloomberg.<\/p>\n

In December the US imposed sanctions<\/a> on the former European Commissioner Thierry Breton as well as four other European \u201cactivists\u201d, accusing them of censorship and \u201csuppress[ing] American viewpoints\u201d. The move was widely seen as an escalation in response to European regulation of US tech platforms.<\/p>\n

Breton is challenging<\/a> the sanctions, and the commission has announced it will back him.<\/p>\n

Asked about a potential US response to the EU\u2019s measures against WhatsApp, Ribera said: \u201cI don\u2019t know how it may be read by any government, but my sense is that this is not connected to politics, but connected to well-functioning markets.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Meta spokesperson said: \u201cThe facts are that there is no reason for the EU to intervene in the WhatsApp Business API. There are many AI options and people can use them from app stores, operating systems, devices, websites, and industry partnerships.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe commission\u2019s logic incorrectly assumes the WhatsApp Business API is a key distribution channel for these chatbots.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last month, Brazilian authorities brought a similar case against WhatsApp Business, saying that there were \u201cpotential anti-competitive practices\u201d in the new terms, Reuters reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That case was suspended<\/a>, with Meta saying its claims were \u201cfundamentally wrong,\u201d and that the \u201cemergence of AI chatbots on the WhatsApp Business Platform overloads our systems, which were not designed for this type of support\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The EU has threatened to take action against the social media company Meta, arguing it has blocked rival…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416296,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-416295","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}