In court papers filed in August and September 2025, the ex-staffers say Meta broke Apple’s privacy rules. They also claim it ignored big security holes in WhatsApp and hid its own studies on child safety in VR. A Strategy of ‘Plausible Deniability’Perhaps the most damning allegations concern a strategy to suppress research on child safety in Meta’s VR products. Simultaneously, the company announced a new WhatsApp privacy system modeled on Apple’s own. This suggests Meta sees the value of Apple’s privacy branding, even while competing with it.