[HN Gopher] WhatsApp delays privacy changes following backlash
___________________________________________________________________
WhatsApp delays privacy changes following backlash
Author : tchalla
Score : 272 points
Date : 2021-01-15 20:02 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (p.dw.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (p.dw.com)
| balozi wrote:
| Some mainstream media outlets seem to be going out of their way
| to spin a softer narrative on-behalf of Whatsapp/FB. They seem to
| believe that users may be too stupid to understand Facebook's
| moves and subsequent public relations. Looking at you New York
| Times.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| I mean the people's reaction is out of scale with the people's
| prior reaction to these things, but that's fine with me: it's
| an overdue correction.
|
| - WhatsApp: Oh wait, SMS etc. is completely insecure
|
| - Signal: Oh wait, WhatsApp is structurally unable to be a
| force for privacy
|
| - Matrix: Oh wait, even benevolent centralization is an
| unnecessary risk
|
| I look forward to the public's increasing wisdom with these
| matter.
| Merman_Mike wrote:
| Really weird tone in their blog post [1].
|
| It's mostly "sorry that you don't understand how things work".
| I've seen this before with these privacy-invading megacorps.
| They're tone deaf and defensive. Maybe they're worried that
| people are catching on and the tides are shifting.
|
| [1] https://blog.whatsapp.com/giving-more-time-for-our-recent-
| up...
| macjohnmcc wrote:
| The customer/product is always wrong!
| oconnor663 wrote:
| I dunno, I've personally heard from friends who thought that
| WhatsApp was turning off encryption. _Tons_ of people have
| misunderstood what the policy change meant. I agree that it 's
| partly self-serving to focus on those people (as opposed to the
| people who did understand the policy and still felt angry about
| it), but it's not unreasonable.
| grenoire wrote:
| Agreed, I had to explain to my friends (some even lawyers,
| who felt _very_ strongly about this) what this change
| actually entailed regarding message encryption.
| saddlerustle wrote:
| It's true though? The actualy privacy policy changes were just
| about enabling business messaging and didn't functionally
| change anything wrt what user data is collected or shared with
| Facebook.
| pmlnr wrote:
| Talking about tone deaf...that blog granted with a cookie
| popup, regardless of firefox tracking protection, a plethora
| ublock plugins, AND the "I don't care about cookies" FF plugin
| (I have Forget Me Not in the background)
| bigiain wrote:
| You say "tone deaf".
|
| I say "manipulative and evil".
| [deleted]
| tinyhouse wrote:
| I already accepted the new terms. I hope it means it doesn't
| matter if someone accepted it or not.
|
| I'm amazed how FB keeps falling for such things. From my
| understanding this story has blown out out of proportion and the
| main reason is the way FB handled those privacy changes.
| stunt wrote:
| "Nothing has changed! We already have your data."
| suyash wrote:
| delay tactic, hoping people will forget
| submeta wrote:
| I am thankful they pushed hard because that gave me reason enough
| to leave Whatsapp, an otherwise wonderful product, but I despised
| using a product that is associated with Facebook. Left FB and
| Instagram years ago, only Whatsapp was left.
|
| Edit: Bought a piece of software [1] that perfectly exported five
| years of messages out of my cellphone, then I didn't hesitate one
| day to delete my WhatsApp accout. I felt an incredible relief
| abandoning the last service I used from Facebook.
|
| [1]: ,,Backuptrans iPhone WhatsApp Transfer for Mac"
| ethagnawl wrote:
| I know it's a non-starter for most of these group messaging and
| social media apps, but it'd be interesting to see one optimize
| for privacy (i.e. not mine user data/behavior/contacts) and
| fund the endeavor by charging for the app and/or usage.
| yc-kraln wrote:
| So, Threema?
| Hamuko wrote:
| I mean, it's not that wonderful. Like, I don't understand what
| was the point of Statuses. Never used it. Much prefer the
| cleanliness of Signal.
|
| The most wonderful thing about WhatsApp was that everyone you
| knew was there.
| rolleiflex wrote:
| It's historical. IIRC WhatsApp started out as an app for
| people to post those statuses as they travel, to let know
| their family and friends their whereabouts. To that effect,
| the founder of Whatsapp was first talking about it in online
| frequent flyer forums such as FlyerTalk that he was already a
| member of. Chat came later.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Quick Google search would suggest that the current status
| feature was only added in 2017.
| kps wrote:
| I have reluctantly been using Whatsapp to contact non-technical
| friends. In the past week, all of them have adopted Signal
| and/or Telegram, and I've deleted my Whatsapp account.
|
| It doesn't matter what they say now; Whatsapp needs to be
| crushed _pour encourager les autres_.
| nowherebeen wrote:
| Me too. I am just waiting for my family members to switch, then
| I can be off FB once and for all..
| submeta wrote:
| I am actively evangelising my family members to start using
| alternatives.
| 458aperta wrote:
| Facebook-owned WhatsApp said they would work to "clear up
| misinformation" around its privacy policy.
|
| Censorship and ban hammer has now become "clearing up
| misinformation". Facebook and others have become the Ministry of
| Truth, just like the novel 1984 predicted.
| yumraj wrote:
| _delays_ not cancels..
|
| Either ways, my WhatsApp was deleted yesterday, FB early last
| year...
|
| Now I just need to wean off of Google...
| loosetypes wrote:
| For maybe the first time I can recall I wasn't able to locate a
| webpage via google search yesterday.
|
| (Described in my last comment if anyone knows the source)
|
| Seemed like every attempt to better describe it as a query took
| me further from what I was looking for.
|
| Results were all (from my perspective) SEO hijacking, clearly
| having nothing to do with my search. And that was behind the
| wall of advertisements and their own google cards of noise they
| plug up front. Going to the next page of results was
| surprisingly difficult.
|
| First time I've considered, maybe this is the wrong tool for
| traversing the memory palace of one's interactions with the
| internet.
| 458aperta wrote:
| Honestly I've stopped using Chrome and always use DDG, and
| Firefox is my default web browser now. I've ditched Chrome
| for good as Firefox is just as good and I feel less creeped
| out.
|
| I think the era of "free stuff for your data" is over. People
| have witnessed the true cost of a zero barrier social network
| services which is the division of society and people creating
| their own realities and clashing with others (ex. flat
| earthers, trump etc.)
|
| Going forward I expect lot of these decentralized, run-by-
| donations services to trend upwards. We will still have FB,
| Google, and the likes but as they lose users their
| pervasiveness will have to increase to compensate for the
| loss in users.
|
| This is good. This is what blockchain should've been but
| couldn't.
| duke_core wrote:
| I used to love Firefox so much before but recently its
| starting to feel less user friendly than freakin' Chrome
| the way it shoves changes down my throat. I still cant even
| stand that huge address bar that goes down to my taskbar,
| that was one of the major reasons I moved away from firefox
| just because of how ugly that and the address bar zoom was
| astronautjones wrote:
| i agree that they should revert this to how it was
| before, but if you want, you can fix it:
|
| https://www.ghacks.net/2020/04/08/how-to-restore-the-old-
| fir...
| liquidify wrote:
| >>wean off of Google
|
| That sounds tough.
|
| Too bad google can't just change back to how they were in the
| beginning. At least just actually hold their old motto above
| greed and money every now and then.
| sky_rw wrote:
| I was presently surprised at how easy the transition from
| Chrome onto Brave was. Multiple profile support with a great
| import tool. Switched to from GMail to ProtonMail as well.
|
| The only thing I can't figure out is how to get off google
| calendar.
| mxuribe wrote:
| Funny enough, as i've been looking to move away from G, i
| thought calendar element would be easy...but its not.
| (Well, its not s tough, just not a direct nor free
| transition.) The default android claendar app doesn't
| connect to a calendar via, say, nextcloud (calDav if i
| recall correctly)...One has to actually get/use a different
| app. I think the one that most folks recommmend for
| nextcloud is not free. (It is not expensive, so that is not
| the challenge.) Its fine for me since i am moving away from
| G apps...but my partner, she is meh-ok with some of their
| default apps...like the default android calendar app,
| though she would like to connect that app to our nextcloud
| cal...Again, nothing major, but just all these little
| annoyances that exhibit the super tight integration that
| was built into android with G services. Anyway, yeah
| calendar is annoying to ween off from G. Yuck!
| at-fates-hands wrote:
| > I was presently surprised at how easy the transition from
| Chrome onto Brave was
|
| Mine was the move from Chrome/Firefox back to Opera.
|
| I'm still puzzled what happened to Firefox. I was using the
| Developer Edition and the last two years the performance is
| really suspect. I don't have a million tabs open, don't
| have a ton of add-ons running and it still lags horribly,
| crashes and new tabs take forever to open
|
| I thought at first it was either my network connection or
| maybe a system issue. Switched to Opera and was like, "Nah
| man, it was definitely the browser."
|
| I'm in the same book with my calendar. I have multiple
| calendars several family members share. I tried using
| outlook.com calendars and although I prefer their UI, it
| wouldn't import Google calendars.
|
| If you have any recommendations, I'm all ears. Its the last
| thing I need to rid myself of Google.
| yumraj wrote:
| Well, I don't use Chrome or Google search (for most part).
| Had moved to iOS from Android last year..
|
| I'm finding Gmail to be most difficult to transition off of.
| I do have personal domain and use Zoho with it, but I think
| there is this mental block.. It will happen..
| helmholtz wrote:
| I'm most impressed by people who can quit Google maps. If
| I'm on the highway driving, or if I have to get somewhere
| in a hurry or it's an urgent situation, I just cannot trust
| another platform.
|
| One time my friend was driving and he asked me to navigate.
| The exit was coming up, meanwhile I'm stuck trying to get
| OSM+ to understand what rounte we are on. That was an
| unpleasant few minutes. Despite trying to stick with it,
| such moments kept coming up again and again. It made me
| realise that Maps is mission critical to me.
|
| By contrast, Gmail was easy. Fastmail ftw, forward all
| google mail to it, and the fact that most of my email use
| is work email, which is on its own domain anyway.
| e9 wrote:
| I use Apple Maps. I find it's better for driving because
| it tells you speed limit etc.
| Marsymars wrote:
| See I find driving to be about as good with Apple Maps
| and Garmin maps as Google Maps. (And they don't have ads
| like Google Maps.) The stickiest point of any Google
| product for me are the Google Maps reviews. Yelp isn't
| really a thing in Canada, so since the death of
| Urbanspoon, if you want restaurant reviews, Google Maps
| is it.
| helmholtz wrote:
| I think things might be better across the Atlantic than
| here in Europe wrt Apple Maps. I can't confirm since I
| don't have Apple Maps on Android. I agree, though, that
| the reviews and the opening hours are very useful.
| submeta wrote:
| I migrated my mails from Gmail to fastmail.com two years
| ago and never looked back. Imported all my google mail, so
| I did not loose anything. What I love about fastmail is
| their pure focus on mailing. It's a beautiful product with
| many useful features. For instance you can create as many
| alias names as you like (although I heard there is a limit,
| but I haven't hit that yet). I create an alias for any new
| website I sign up. I also have aliasses that serve as a
| base-name (for instance mypurchases@fastmail.com) and can
| be used multiple times like so for instance:
| amazon@mypurchases.fastmail.com.
|
| Edit:
|
| I am also using my personal domain instead of @fastmail.com
| You never know when / if you need to leave a service
| provider again, and you don't want to change your email
| address again.
| Klonoar wrote:
| FastMail is also one of the last providers with a push
| notification certificate for Mail.app, last I checked -
| which makes it feel right at home on iOS.
| 458aperta wrote:
| I'm sold. If I pay $3/month can I migrate all of my dozen
| Google accounts? I have an email for each product in my
| portfolio and switching back and forth.
|
| I would gladly pay a subscription fee if it means Google
| isn't reading my emails to sell me ads.
| submeta wrote:
| I had four gmail addresses. Imported a ton of emails from
| these accounts into my fastmail account. The alias
| feature is something I haven't seen anywhere else, at
| least not so polished. Previously I hated signing up with
| my personal email address on sites I'd use only once to
| shop for bicycle parts or whatnot.
| 458aperta wrote:
| can you explain more about the alias feature? what makes
| it special? Because I think this could be a killer
| feature as I have that exact same problem when signing up
| to websites
| 458aperta wrote:
| I've been a long time fan of Android but I still cannot be
| forced to swap it for the Apple ecosystem which really is
| no better than Android.
|
| What I would like is a hardened, privacy focused distro of
| Android that is guaranteed to be independent from Google.
| Sounds like a tall order but here's hoping Samsung will
| come up with their own mobile OS although how unlikely this
| will be.
| cheschire wrote:
| Just wait till you try getting off amazon during a pandemic...
| kortilla wrote:
| It's... not difficult at all? A myriad of grocery chains
| offer curbside pickup and/or delivery. Walmart delivers, Home
| Depot, blah blah blah.
|
| What makes it so difficult?
| helmholtz wrote:
| Yep. It was laughably easy. In fairness, I replaced it with
| shopping.google.com for a bit. It helped, however, that I
| value minimalism a lot, and I also kept an eye out for
| where I was buying electronics from, where I was buying
| household stuff from etc. Slowly I just started going
| directly to the source.
| imheretolearn wrote:
| Good luck doing so and let me know how you did it!
| yumraj wrote:
| Chrome -> Firefox, Safari, Brave -- Done
|
| Google Search -> DDG -- Done
|
| Android -> iOS -- Done
|
| Gmail -> Personal domain email (pending, work started)
|
| TV OS from Android -> Dumb TV (very hard)
|
| YouTube -> ? (limited use, very hard)
|
| Google Classroom (for kids) -> ? (very hard)
|
| Google Maps (noted by _helmholtz_ below ) - > ? (very hard)
|
| ...
| helmholtz wrote:
| > YouTube -> ? (limited use, very hard)
|
| Some out of the box thinking is in order here. Duringe the
| initial lockdown, I signed up to pay for Coursera's
| courses. I found out that what I craved wasn't shirking
| from work, but rather distraction. It didn't matter that I
| had to do some homework for the courses. Since I was
| _watching_ something, my brain thought of it as the same
| thing.
|
| But I should note that you haven't addressed the biggest
| bugbear of mine either, Google maps. It's light-years ahead
| of everything else, and just does not get replaced easily.
| yumraj wrote:
| Regarding Youtube it's a little bit more nuanced
| unfortunately. I tried blocking Youtube via pi-hole and
| suddenly a lot of educational course work for kids
| started throwing a fit since a lot of videos are hosted
| on Youtube. So I had to grudgingly unblock it.
|
| Yes, I had missed Google maps. I agree it's indeed light-
| years ahead of others.
|
| In end it's about reducing Google footprint, elimination
| is extremely hard.
| helmholtz wrote:
| > it's about reducing Google footprint
|
| Indeed. Making peace with this fact has helped me a lot.
| I don't actually pay Google with anything other than my
| attention. All of my entertainment is via a
| uMatrix/uBlockOrigin protected Firefox, so things could
| be worse.
| eertami wrote:
| >Android -> iOS
|
| This is just going out of the frying pan and into the
| fryer. (I assume you mean stock/Google powered Android
| here.) Replacing one user-hostile walled garden with
| another user-hostile walled garden is hardly an
| improvement.
|
| I'd suggest Google Android -> Open-source Android ROM,
| though I know it can cause issues with some banking apps,
| annoyingly.
| cutthegrass2 wrote:
| through the lens of 'user data collection to sell
| targeted advertising', I'm not sure Apple is even in the
| same league as Google here.
| yumraj wrote:
| I'll have to disagree, iOS and Android are far apart.
|
| In end, as I said above, it's about reducing the
| footprint. Eliminating Google is a very difficult
| undertaking which I'm not really sure is even possible..
| suyash wrote:
| If you're switching to iPhone and then Apple Maps shouldn't
| be hard at all, it's actually a pretty decent alternative
| now.
| brink wrote:
| If only Firefox OS has succeeded.
|
| Between Android or iOS, I don't see iOS as being much better.
| At least I can still side-load applications in Android if it
| gets banned by the censors.
| imheretolearn wrote:
| I concur. Given current offerings from the Big G, I find it
| either inconvenient or requiring massive efforts to wean
| off of them.
| bentcorner wrote:
| I've switched to DDG several years ago and don't miss anything.
| I still use gmail but only because of inertia. I could switch
| to some other provider but haven't felt the need yet.
|
| The hardest replacement for me is Maps. Their search and
| traffic data always work for me. They have a webapp and mobile
| app that are excellent. I could do without the ads but
| recognize it's the tradeoff for using their app. Nothing I've
| tried gets close to a replacement. (I've heard good things
| about Apple Maps on iOS, but I have an android phone)
| mekoka wrote:
| As someone who's been using DDG for the past three years, I'd
| love to nudge more people toward it, but when I think of how
| often I have to prefix my search with !g to find what I'm
| looking for, I don't think DDG is quite there yet. The only
| thing keeping me from going back to Google is that I despise
| it more than I'm annoyed with DDG.
| bigiain wrote:
| Don't let perfect be the enemy of good here.
|
| Using Google some of the time is better that using it all
| of the time.
|
| DGG has been my default search engine for years now, and
| like you, I occasionally need to add !g to get the answer
| I'm looking for. I'm fine with that. I hope DGG uses those
| failed search followed by a !g search to improve their
| stuff. (In a privacy preserving way)
| mkl wrote:
| Technically you don't ever have to prefix with "!g"; you
| can put it anywhere in the search box. I find DDG gives me
| what I need >90% of the time, and often when it fails,
| Google fails too.
| throwaway2245 wrote:
| I often find I get better results from Google when I'm
| making purchasing decisions, identifying where I can buy
| a product locally or for a good price, which disappoints
| me because that's data I definitely don't want Google to
| have about me.
| liquidify wrote:
| I'm surprised they cared enough to delay the changes. I guess
| they will probably just restructure the changes enough that they
| can get away with the same stuff in a slightly different way in
| the future.
| NetOpWibby wrote:
| "Delays"
|
| So, they're gonna keep going.
| uncledave wrote:
| Delay and use the word misinformation. -1 more trust point.
| parliament32 wrote:
| I'm surprised they didn't flat-out call it "fake news".
| stunt wrote:
| The amount of commercial time on cable TV keeps increasing as
| networks try to make up for shrinking audiences by stuffing more
| ads.
|
| That may happen to Facebook in a few years.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Some execs realized they weren't gonna get their bonuses anymore
| and, since they started bleeding users, went in full damage
| control mode to save their own asses.
| cromka wrote:
| Consolidating, strategical changes like these sure are
| introduced and orchestrated by the top, not by the lower/mid
| level management who want to be noticed.
| mnd999 wrote:
| I think it's probably already a fuck-up of bonus limiting
| proportions.
| gkoberger wrote:
| Hmm, I hate this concept of "bonuses" because in my experience
| this isn't really how things work.
|
| However, I do think the incentives internally probably were
| structured in a way to encourage this change, and I doubt
| anyone is being seen as being "more successful" due to a
| rollback.
| derptron wrote:
| What don't you understand? You changed the word bonuses to
| incentives.
| [deleted]
| mnd999 wrote:
| You put that much more eloquently than I did.
| 411111111111111 wrote:
| > _Hmm, I hate this concept of "bonuses" because in my
| experience this isn't really how things work._
|
| You're right. They're going to pay themselves the bonus
| regardless of this debacle.
| kortilla wrote:
| Please explain to me the process by which executives decide
| their own bonus.
| imheretolearn wrote:
| I know this is going to get a lot of hate here, but sometimes I
| wonder whether these execs consider anything besides their fat
| bonuses or anything which is not related to their bonuses?
| oli5679 wrote:
| The founder of Whatsapp
|
| (1) claims that Facebook promised Whatsapp would not be
| monetised, and that Facebook and and Whatsapp's data would not be
| combined. This information was also provided to European
| antitrust regulators
|
| (2) missed out on $850 stock option grants vesting by quitting
| early over disputes with Facebook about monetisation strategy
| involving advertising
|
| (3) promoted #deletefacebook on Whatsapp following the Cambridge
| Anlalytica scandal
|
| (4) Donated $50m to the non-for-profit alternative, Signal.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Acton
| suyash wrote:
| At this point Facebook's best interest is to sell WhatsApp or
| make it a separate entity, completely out of Facebook's reach
| and control if they want to win users trust again.
| mkl wrote:
| Re (2), it was $850 _million_.
| tinyhouse wrote:
| typo: $850 million.
| fastball wrote:
| Technically it's not a donation, it's a 0% interest loan that
| doesn't need to be repaid until 2068. And $50M was the initial
| amount, but it's up to ~$100M now.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_Foundation
| tinyhouse wrote:
| He seems like an amazing guy and that we need more people like
| him in tech, esp in leadership positions. However, I'm not sure
| why he was so against monetization. If whatsapp was still an
| independent company, they would have to monetize somehow. Why
| cannot FB monetize? As a user of whatsapp I wouldn't even care
| if the showed ads in big group chats. As long as there would be
| zero tracking or leaking of data and ads would be solely based
| on location and maybe chat info.
| nitrogen wrote:
| Even if you downloaded all ads in advance and ran all the
| logic client side, basing ads on chat info would inevitably
| leak information if the ad was ever clicked.
| eps wrote:
| WhatsApp had a $1 annual fee and 400M users prior to FB
| acquisition. Just FYI.
| tinyhouse wrote:
| I know that but it's not that they had $400M in revenue.
| See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25666270
|
| FB never charged for whatsapp for a good reason.
| pmlnr wrote:
| > If whatsapp was still an independent company, they would
| have to monetize somehow.
|
| No, they wouldn't. This thinking is what has lead the world
| where it is.
|
| Say you have 2 billion (10^9) users paying $1 per year. You
| follow inflation. That's 2 billion a year. That covers a lot
| of workforce, and a lot of servers.
|
| This idea of infinite growth boggles me - how can people with
| math background insist on such impossible thought?
| tinyhouse wrote:
| Good luck having 2 billion people paying you $1 when there
| are free alternatives.
| [deleted]
| secfirstmd wrote:
| Too little too late.
|
| Use Signal (and donate/make a PR every once in awhile).
|
| Been following Whisper Systems since Redphone and TextSecure, so
| glad to see them shine.
| wzy wrote:
| If only this was the response also for Oculus and its new need
| for a Facebook account to work.
| TheChaplain wrote:
| Just a matter of time until WhatsApp have ads or somehow used to
| datamine the conversations.
|
| Because it would not make sense otherwise, considering how much
| it must cost them to run something like WhatsApp with millions of
| users and not get anything in return.
| ethagnawl wrote:
| > how much it must cost them to run something like WhatsApp
| with millions of users
|
| I'd be very curious to know. I don't remember specifics, but
| they were running a shockingly low number of servers early on
| in large part because WhatsApp is built on top of Erlang/OTP.
| agilob wrote:
| They have actually planned to add ads late last year/early this
| year.
| addicted wrote:
| I'm not sure, but I believe Whatsapp was profitable prior to
| its FB acquisition.
|
| They used to charge about $1/yr before acquisition and had over
| 500mm users. And I think they had fewer than 30 employees.
|
| So they were bringing in about $500mm/yr and their
| infrastructure costs were unlikely to have been in the 100s of
| millions.
| renewiltord wrote:
| It's not the only revenue model. You could extract value from
| it as a platform - wechat style.
| ibejoeb wrote:
| Bring back the $1/yr charge and keep it private. It'd be a good
| look. It's really a good product, technically. A pleasure to
| use and the voice and video quality has been excellent
| basically everywhere I've used it.
|
| All that said, Signal is making steady progress, and I've had
| zero resistance getting people to use it. Got 12 people on it
| this past week. Starting a few group threads helped it stick.
|
| Edit: and signal is down...
| rapnie wrote:
| Is Signal purely funded by donations, or how does it work
| there?
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| It's a not for profit foundation, taking foundations. I
| haven't checked recently, but that was previously their
| only income source.
| jFriedensreich wrote:
| It's not a given that ads or datamining are the only options,
| they could do in app payments and paid business account. But
| its not very likely with facebook as parent company...
| saddlerustle wrote:
| Whatsapp already supports in app payments and business
| accounts. In fact the point of the recent privacy policy
| change was just to enable more features for business uses.
| imheretolearn wrote:
| They can't datamine conversations because of supposed E2E. It
| surely would be great to see them do it, although impossible.
| liaukovv wrote:
| All it takes is to mine them before encryption
| felipelemos wrote:
| They have some revenue, although I don't know how much, selling
| API access: https://www.whatsapp.com/business/api
| schoolornot wrote:
| > considering how much it must cost them to run something like
| WhatsApp
|
| Or justify the costs of buying it. Supposedly the
| infrastructure and tech-stack is pretty lean.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Bruh, I wouldn't even mind these companies datamining me if
| their ads were even close to being relevant for my needs. It
| would spare me loads of time I waste online looking for that
| exact product that fits my needs.
|
| I mean, what's the point of all the data they have from me plus
| the armies of well paid ML engineers they have on their
| payroll, when if I order a laptop from Amazon, I'll get
| bombarded with ads for laptops for the next month. Do
| advertisers imagine I go through laptops like toilet rolls or
| something? If this is peak ML, then those who fear an AI
| uprising can sleep soundly.
| KMag wrote:
| I live in Hong Kong, speak a bit of Mandarin, and just a few
| words of Cantonese.
|
| YouTube knows my UI is in English, and I've never watched a
| Cantonese video, and yet it constantly shows me ads in
| Cantonese. There are a lot of people in Hong Kong who don't
| speak Cantonese, or at least who are more fluent in English
| than Cantonese.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| Exactly. Every time I see some new article about how ML is
| going to mind-control us through perfectly placed ads and
| Yuval Noah Harari writes a new book about the machines
| knowing us better than we do I just have to spent five
| minutes on Amazon or Youtube. I'm not afraid that the
| machines are too smart but too stupid to be honest.
|
| I'm not convinced that if you went and did an actual
| scientific study on the efficacy of "big data" teams and ad-
| targeting and went through every business it would do any
| better than just regular boring contextual ads.
| ManBlanket wrote:
| I spent a lot of energy and time studying applied ML in
| university. After competing in several contests I realized
| in most cases a simple linear equation threw shade on the
| whole carnival. Don't get me wrong there are amazing
| applications for ML, image recognition, simulated physics,
| the list goes on. But most of the commercial applications
| I've seen render a ML model wholly unnecessary. You don't
| need a heavy handed big data machine learning model to
| figure out, "people who bought also bought", nor does a
| crime prediction system need to be more complicated than,
| "where the cops and poor people were last year". FFS a
| national convenience store contracted one of our classes to
| do analysis on 10 years of data and the shocking conclusion
| most groups arrived at was, "people smoke a lot of
| cigarettes and drink a lot of beer". A revelation. Maybe if
| it were required curriculum people would realize you don't
| need to a hire a warlock to do basic statistics...
| hectormalot wrote:
| I think its possible the targeting works for the
| advertisers (at some level) while still failing completely
| for end users. e.g. If I get my hit-rate up from 1% to 2%
| by moving from contextual to 'give-me-all-your-
| data'-targeting, then that doubles my return as an
| advertiser, while as a user I don't see a difference and
| still think: "all ads I see are terrible".
|
| The lie is telling users that targeted ads are good for
| them
| banana_giraffe wrote:
| At my job, there is a problem that's classically solved
| with a bunch of regexps and run of the mill text parsing.
|
| The ML experts in my company keep telling me maintaining
| these regexps is too costly dev wise, and that they can use
| ML to adapt to changes in the real world, and get a better
| result faster.
|
| After nearly a year of work, buying some fancy new
| computers with giant GPUs, and countless meetings to
| describe the problem space, they have something that's
| around 60-70% as accurate as the current state of the art,
| and say they're close to closing the gap.
|
| Meanwhile I add a new regexp or tweak an existing one and
| cause them to go back to the drawing board because I've
| "changed the entire problem description".
|
| Sometimes I feel like I want the job where the only
| criteria is that I'm using the fancy new toys. It seems
| like more fun.
| kgwxd wrote:
| "relevant ads" has to be one of the greatest
| PR/marketing/scam terms ever created. It's a lie to collect
| data and get small business to spend at least some
| advertising money even though they never get seen over the
| big companies competing for the same ad space. There was
| never an incentive to get actual relevant ads working,
| development would just be a waste of money.
| p410n3 wrote:
| But if the data isn't even used for the ads... Why do they
| collect them at all? I thought this was the only reason for
| businesses to collect data in the first place
| Kliment wrote:
| It's not used for mass market ads, it's being used for
| analytics and being sold directly, and also for precision
| targeting (political attack ads shown only to people in a
| target constituency considered likely to vote for
| someone, to discourage them from doing so). Companies pay
| for "tell me what kind of people are looking at my site,
| in extreme detail". Scammers pay for "people who use/buy
| a particular item/service" so they can do targeted scams
| based on that. Political campaigns pay for targeted
| attack ads. For mass marketing, that kind of targeting is
| too expensive and the data is too fuzzy, since you
| basically want to reach everyone and the selection
| criteria are limited so you get lots of dumb "would you
| like to buy the thing you just bought".
| croes wrote:
| You are not FB customer. It's not about your needs but the
| needs of the ad buyers.
| mikestew wrote:
| I swear there are bots running around on HN just waiting
| for the opportunity to tell us that we're not the customer.
| Bot or not, I'll ask: thanks for the insight, how does that
| tie into parent's point? That advertisers "need" to show
| you ads for things already purchased? Advertisers are
| playing the long game, setting up for my _next_ laptop
| purchase?
| drdaeman wrote:
| I'm sorry for somewhat cynical response, but... Those
| customers need to _believe_ they 're getting value out of
| it, and it's all that counts for Facebook's business.
|
| They target something like "people interested in computer
| hardware" and they get them, including those who don't
| need a laptop. It's bad but must be somewhat better than
| completely non-targeted ads, as it excludes people who
| have never expressed any interest (so, while having false
| positives at least it tries to save on false negatives).
| And, of course, there is opportunity for Facebook to tell
| how their superior ad platform is smarter than last year.
|
| The rest (but maybe even more important than actual value
| advertisers are getting) is advertising of advertising -
| all those stories how this machine learning agile
| blockchain big data is our only future. And many people
| just believe it, and non-ironically talk how Facebook is
| that omniscient deus ex machina that knows us better than
| we do ourselves. As this meme lives, those who have a
| product to advertise are inclined to believe it as well
| (and this makes them spend money on Facebook Ads).
|
| So, in the end, the fact you're getting ads you're not
| interested in is less relevant and is kind of shadowed
| over by the fact advertisers get somewhat better value or
| maybe even just believe they do.
|
| There are shouts that the king is naked and memes that
| modern machine learning has two objectives: classifying
| data and making predictions^W^W^W^W^W bullshitting
| investors and raising money... but so far, such voices
| are in minority.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| The advertisers can tell from cookies etc that you are
| interested in a product and were looking. They cannot
| always tell that you clicked 'buy' at some point.
| briefcomment wrote:
| I think they're just saying that it doesn't matter if the
| end user converts based on the ad, but rather whether the
| company making the ad decides to put it on FB. FB wants
| to optimize for companies buying ad slots from them, not
| whether the end user is influenced.
| shawnz wrote:
| If the company doesn't think FB users convert, why would
| they buy ads there?
| msie wrote:
| Some are just finding out now that FB ads aren't
| effective.
| briefcomment wrote:
| Attributing conversions to ads is a really difficult
| problem. There's probably a decent amount of cluelessness
| and institutional inertia that keeps them spending on
| ineffective ads. See the recent stories on Uber
| drastically reducing ad spend without seeing any
| downstream effects.
| ndiscussion wrote:
| A great mystery as old as the television
| https://freakonomics.com/podcast/advertising-part-1/
| konjin wrote:
| FB adds told them to. The true end game.
| pishpash wrote:
| That's the dumb ML practice of those companies, not
| Facebook. Also even an irrelevant ad probably converts
| through brand exposure alone. They are forced to fork
| over to compete for limited exposure.
| blackrock wrote:
| This bot can't even write in proper English grammar. Bad
| bot.
| hinkley wrote:
| You think Alienware wants to pay for ads to recent Macbook
| Air purchasers?
| midasuni wrote:
| Yup, buy a Mac, have issues with it, grumble lots, see an
| advert for an alternative, send the Mac back and replace
| it with the shiny.
| blackrock wrote:
| Maybe the better approach is to sell things around the
| Mac?
|
| Bought a Mac recently? How about a new case? Or some
| discounted software or games? Or how about a new mouse?
|
| Bought a house recently? How about some gardening
| services? Or some home insurance?
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| I mean, it's not really unheard-of for people to have a
| Macbook Air as their daily driver plus a gaming PC for
| enjoying stuff like Cyberpunk or Flight Simulator 2020.
|
| If I had the money I would definitely have both.
| rtx wrote:
| Days of targeted ads are over, it all about brand now.
| You will see ads like on TV and radio of old.
| shawnz wrote:
| If Facebook doesn't meet the user's needs, then there are
| no ad opportunities to sell.
| ngcc_hk wrote:
| When you lost that you lost everything. Whatever you said
| would be on record to go after you. May be you can trust your
| national Gov. but the whole world. Would the record be leaked
| hacked or even required by the police.
|
| Not believe there is totalitarian is the greatest myth one
| can have in today workd.
| bluSCALE4 wrote:
| Yep, there are some many simple comments you can make in
| person or via text that can have huge ramifications on your
| life if it got out. Sometimes we say extreme things just
| because we're frustrated but taken out of context, it
| sounds insane. So if you want to be blackmailed in the
| future if you have any sort of ambitions, play game and
| give big tech all your data.
|
| "I've got nothing to hide"
| sunstone wrote:
| What they get in return, and the reason they paid megabucks for
| it in the first place, is that no other social media entity is
| able to get control of Whatsapp's 100's of millions of users.
| That's worth while in itself without being able to monetize it.
| But...since the founders have now left and no one is watching
| why not add a little monetization to a good deal? Unfortunately
| with a reputation like Facebook's one little twitch and the
| herd will stampede.
| GordonS wrote:
| > That's worth while in itself without being able to monetize
| it
|
| Is it though? What's the actual benefit for WhatsApp?
| pesenti wrote:
| The communication around this change was very poorly handled.
| This policy update does not affect the privacy of messages with
| friends or family in any way:
| https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/security-and-privacy/answer....
| I don't believe that was well understood.
|
| Disclosure: I work at FB but unrelated to WhatsApp
| bennyp101 wrote:
| It seemed to imply that from Feb, metadata would now be shared
| with Facebook (I know, probably was anyway), and a lot of
| people took a dim view of that. (esp. those that paid for it
| originally)
|
| I think a _lot_ of horses have bolted, but I 'm sure there will
| be plently left once the gate is shut.
| random5634 wrote:
| We've been down this path before.
|
| We were told nothing would change.
|
| Oh wait, the time of last login will be shared with facebook
| family of companies? Despite this blog post showing no sharing
| icons at all - they ARE sharing and now lying about it by not
| showing a single icon to reflect this sharing.
|
| Oh wait, we need your phone number for 2FA? Sure. Bam - now
| you've given us permission to spam you! They lied about that.
|
| Check out signal and get away from the lies. This blog post is
| such a good example of it, all the things not showing as not
| shared are probably SHARED! So despite EVERY icon saying
| nothing is shared, they no doubt are pumping your phone number
| over to Facebook family of companies.
|
| They are trying to do the fake apple privacy label thing - but
| only including non-sharing labels, not the sharing labels.
|
| Totally disgusting. I'm signing up to signal today and pushing
| hard for my network to switch.
|
| Now if only signal used go or something lighter weight instead
| of a monster java stack they could probably scale a lot better.
| annadane wrote:
| Ask your bosses why they're ok with forcing through changes
| that nobody wants and repeatedly lying to users
| dastx wrote:
| No one wants? But the customer wants them. It just so happens
| to be that you're not the customer.
| nocturnial wrote:
| From the link you supplied: "WhatsApp does not share your
| contacts with Facebook"
|
| Wouldn't it be better to just say: "WhatsApp does not share
| your contacts." or even better "WhatsApp doesn't store any of
| your contacts especially the ones who doesn't even use
| WhatsApp"?
| [deleted]
| exoque wrote:
| You know, I don't care about the changes to the privacy policy
| at all. I tried to move to an alternative messenger for years
| but I was never able to convince enough people. Now that
| there's enough momentum I tried again and every person I care
| about was willing to move. Let's see if we can use the network
| effect for our own good for once.
| [deleted]
| davros wrote:
| Too late. When there is a _mandatory_ requirement to share data
| with Facebook that is a hard no regardless of the details. I 'd
| be happy to pay or get ads within reason, but to monetize my
| privacy, no way.
|
| My user experience on Signal has been excellent so far, family
| switched without difficulty.
| rainyMammoth wrote:
| Facebook guy tells us that the changes are harmless and that
| there is nothing to worry about. Nothing to see here I guess.
|
| Amazing what some internal koolaid can do to you (well more
| than this,it's really probably greed). Please rethink
| critically the ethics of your employer.
| Merman_Mike wrote:
| +1
|
| A Facebook employee making claims about privacy or ethics
| makes me immediately suspicious of those claims.
| tbodt wrote:
| To me that was never the problem. The problem is joining data
| that doesn't need to be joined.
| guidingtunnel wrote:
| too little, too late
| skzv wrote:
| Now, it's not concrete evidence, but I find it truly curious that
| Telegram has been banned in many authoritarian countries, but
| WhatsApp wasn't.
|
| It does suggest the authorities do have access to WhatsApp chats
| in some manner, at least.
|
| Durov has publicly stated that the FBI offered bribes multiple
| times to insert a backdoor into Telegram.
| the-dude wrote:
| And Zuckerberg supposedly played around with the idea of running
| for president.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| So did Trump at one point. I won't rule out anything anymore.
| nowherebeen wrote:
| Trump has a huge base that shares his beliefs. I am not
| convinced that Zuck has any other then those he pays at his
| company. Everyone that has ever worked with him in his early
| years and those he acquired (Instagram/ Whatsapp) have
| distance themselves the moment they vested their equity.
| the-dude wrote:
| To be fair to Trump, he played with the idea for _decades_
| and his timing was impeccable.
| [deleted]
| hinkley wrote:
| Someone (or several someones) predicted this a long time
| ago and I adopted it as my own.
|
| * To elect a female president, there would first have to be
| a male POC president
|
| * The president immediately after the first POC president
| would be the whitest, loudest man they could find.
|
| The only thing wrong about the second prediction is that we
| got the _orangest_ , loudest man they could find.
| nabla9 wrote:
| Zuckerberg made incredible effort without announcing.
|
| * He restructured of Facebook stock trough the Chan Zuckerberg
| Initiative so that he can run for a office and maintain control
| (also for tax and other reasons).
|
| * He started with "I'm no longer an atheist", now believes
| religion to be "very important."
|
| * Hired Obama's campaign manager (David Plouffe)
|
| * Hired former GWB campaign manager and RNC chariman (Ken
| Mehlman)
|
| * visited 50 states "to meet people".
|
| * hired more even more political strategists who worked for
| Obama's and Hillary's campaign. He had something like 150
| people working just for his PR according to some sources.
|
| No amount of turd polishing with unlimited money and PR talent
| was able to make people to like him. Trump is horrible but at
| least he raises emotions in people.
| [deleted]
| rodion_89 wrote:
| > No amount of turd polishing with unlimited money and PR
| talent was able to make people to like him
|
| I don't rule it out. Gates managed to pull it off when I
| didn't think it was possible
| Hamuko wrote:
| I don't think Gates is nearly as uncharismatic as Zucc. I
| mean, just look at his old mugshot.
|
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Bill_Ga
| t...
| the-dude wrote:
| Bill Gates and Warren Buffet _Testing mattresses_ :
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XFwlNVRD5M
| [deleted]
| gabaix wrote:
| He also made Facebook hire a full-time pollster to run polls
| about his popularity.
| frongpik wrote:
| He doesn't need to be likeable to win the elections. Biden is
| going to implement extremely inclusive policies that large
| swaths of americans, especially on the south, are allergic
| to. So in 4 years, Zuck will simply promise to undo all these
| policies and those americans will have no other choice but to
| vote for him.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Ah yes, the people in the south are going to vote for a
| Silicon Valley liberal.
| hinkley wrote:
| > He had something like 150 people working just for his PR
| according to some sources.
|
| I wonder what the cost-benefit line looks like for PR person
| versus life coach.
|
| That's a lot of yes-men. Maybe we should bring back Court
| Jester as a profession.
| Hamuko wrote:
| > _Maybe we should bring back Court Jester as a
| profession._
|
| As a profession or as a title?
| MrPatan wrote:
| * visited 50 states "to meet people".
|
| At least we got some memes out of that.
| wozer wrote:
| Huh? It seems pretty obvious that he does not have the
| necessary charisma.
| suyash wrote:
| I thought you were going to say the "necessary data" lol
| guidingtunnel wrote:
| that's some technical pov, lol
| abhinav22 wrote:
| LOL
| klmadfejno wrote:
| I felt like he was doing a lot of personal PR and a
| presidential run felt like it was in the works for 2020, but
| Facebook soured pretty quickly well before that could be
| realized.
|
| I don't think he would have done particularly well either,
| due to lack of charisma.
|
| Highlights from his hourlong livestream to show how relatable
| and definitely a human he is.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVyLlFezj2E
| randycupertino wrote:
| He did a tour of America to "meet folks" and did internal
| polling regarding how he was received (poorly, which tempered
| expectations) but wouldn't be surprising if he still harbors
| ambitions in that realm.
| https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alexkantrowitz/new-
| data...
| Hamuko wrote:
| Yeah, I remember a lot of people mocking him during all of
| the hearings for his robot-like demeanour. Like this:
| https://twitter.com/bananaben420/status/1288564841742041089
|
| I really can't imagine him giving a speech on a stage with
| cheering crowds.
| the-dude wrote:
| Except to himself apparently.
| mnd999 wrote:
| He has about the right level of empathy.
| el_duderino wrote:
| The URL should probably be updated to:
| https://blog.whatsapp.com/giving-more-time-for-our-recent-up...
| jgalt212 wrote:
| It's gonna eventually come. Billion user services just don't pay
| for themselves. I don't say this to defend Facebook, because if
| even they sell it, the next person down the line will still be
| faced with the same monetization issues.
| headsupernova wrote:
| public utility time!
| schmorptron wrote:
| Weren't they profitable when they were charging 1EUR a year per
| user before? I wouldn't mind going back to that.
| ascar wrote:
| Yea. I also find it hard to believe that WhatsApp wouldn't be
| profitable with $1 per user per year. There is a lot you can
| do with $2bil a year.
|
| I think I read that Brian Acton called out Sandberg on that
| once. That it wasn't just about profitability, but greed.
| eznzt wrote:
| They were supposedly charging that, but the first year was
| free, and then every time you were close to running out of
| free time you would get x more free months. I chained those
| free months for years until it became completely free. So it
| was actually free to use.
| mnd999 wrote:
| So go back to charging a small fee. People used to pay it and
| with the network effect they still would.
| tmerse wrote:
| WhatsApp used to have paying customers.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Facebook and Whatsapp can absolutely exist and sustain itself
| if accounts were paid and cost a couple dollars per month.
| helloguillecl wrote:
| How about actually paying for the product, like it was when I
| signed up?
| rex_lupi wrote:
| don't worry, they're collecting your data for years actually. /s
| rootsudo wrote:
| Basically means it's better for them to not be so transparent.
| danimatic wrote:
| I think most people know about the collecting data thing. But
| WhatsApp/Facebook made a big mistake by forcing longtime users
| to accept the new rules or otherwise to get excluded from the
| community. This creates a very bad feeling because it's like
| someone puts a gun on your chest. Take this or die! Ashole
| move...
| badwolf wrote:
| "oops, we didn't think anyone would notice"
| user00012-ab wrote:
| How Cancel Culture works:
|
| Day 1) Users are outraged and company says there will be changes!
| (Twitter bans Trump)
|
| Day 2) Users are angry and company shows changes they will be
| making (yup Trumps account is gone.)
|
| Day 3) Users move on to something else and company goes back to
| whatever they want to do (Trump posts video on twitter, but this
| one is ok, we'll let this one slide.)
|
| Give it a few days and WhatsApp will be back to business as
| usual.
| cybert00th wrote:
| A sticking plaster on a haemorrhaging wound - and I'm hopeful the
| bleeding will continue.
|
| Matt Stoller from BIG is right, only jail time for executives
| guilty of breaking the Sherman Act will stop these monopolies
| now.
| helmholtz wrote:
| My fear is that people will say "Oh, I can now keep Whatsapp
| around for just a bit longer" and the furore will die down.
| Luckily, my colleagues, not just friends, have moved over so I
| can at least delete it after asking them if they mind
| connecting on Signal.
| mindfulplay wrote:
| Well, they will probably continue ramming this through in other
| countries where they have a lot more users without having to
| worry about any privacy implications.
| myarr wrote:
| Kinda surprised that Signal doesn't support bitcoin/crypto
| donations
| phonebucket wrote:
| I have to say that this renews my faith in something. I don't
| know what that something is, but I think it's important.
|
| Users have been going to Signal en masse, in their millions upon
| millions, to the point that Facebook had to back down.
|
| It's a sort of democratic consumerism. I don't want to call it
| capitalism, but is that what it is?
|
| Either way, it's nice to know that people can make big
| corporations change their minds sometimes.
| nerbert wrote:
| I wonder how many users they've lost for this shift to happen. On
| what metric is it based?
| colordrops wrote:
| A lot of people are migrating to Signal. I'm wondering what
| Signal's monetization model is, as they certainly won't be able
| to maintain the level of usage forever as a free app.
| LockAndLol wrote:
| It's a non profit. It runs on donations. There is no
| "monetization model"
| rovr138 wrote:
| Donations are a monetization model.
|
| Servers and infrastructure cost money. People's time costs
| money. You need enough donations for it. If you don't, you
| have to strategize to get more.
| MikeKusold wrote:
| Donations, or an interest free $100 million 50 year loan
| from the founder of WhatsApp.
| randall wrote:
| Brian action established the signal foundation with an
| initial $50mm grant.
| suyash wrote:
| If we each give $10 dollar per year it will take care of their
| finances, Wikipedia runs and scales based on donations as well.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| alex_young wrote:
| Anyone surprised by the move towards monetization wasn't paying
| much attention when they were acquired for $19 billion a few
| years ago.
| enachtry wrote:
| Phew. I hope this means Signal gets back to normal soon.
|
| Also, Signal should introduce some kind of paid subscription with
| a few critically important qualities:
|
| 1. Anonymous payment that binds subscriptions to users without
| retaining anything about who paid. Like a prepaid GSM SIM. All
| Signal needs to know is that the current terminal uses a paid
| subscription.
|
| 2. Ability to buy a cheaper bulk/family bundle. I use Signal to
| talk to family and close friends and would like to pay for myself
| and my parents, at the very least.
|
| 3. Price it differently in different countries. $1 in India is as
| heavy as $10 in US. This is super mega important.
|
| 4. Setup dedicated servers for subscription users with a much
| better service level. The service collapse that happened today
| should not happen again. There should also be an option for a
| fully encrypted backup that Signal cannot decrypt just on the
| server side to store personal conversation logs.
| syntaxing wrote:
| Hmm not trying to flame the fire, but it's kind of coincidental
| that the day Whatsapp delays the privacy change is the same day
| Signal servers are down.
| polote wrote:
| I'm not then, but if I were them, I would do the opposite. I will
| immediately do the next shady step (whatever it is ) that Zuck
| always wanted to do. Because yeah, there is a lot of bad press
| around the privacy changes. But you better get all the backlash
| at the same time, than several time a backlash.
|
| And that would be so good because I could be convinced to really
| uninstall whatsaap
| superbcarrot wrote:
| > But you better get all the backlash at the same time, than
| several time a backlash.
|
| I'm not sure. Bad publicity has a critical point after which
| people leave and move to other services. When people who
| weren't concerned about privacy before began to have
| conversations about whether Telegram or Signal is a better
| replacement to WhatsApp, Facebook realized that they have
| pushed it too far this time. They're much better served if
| people think "Oh WhatsApp is owned by a shady company but
| everyone I know uses it so I need to use it to".
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| That, and do it _now now now_. The backlash is already semi-
| drowned with the whole world looking at the sociopolitical
| issues in the US. A perfect crisis that no self-respecting evil
| megacorp would let go to waste.
| senux wrote:
| > And that would be so good because I could be convinced to
| really uninstall whatsaap
|
| Did you just provide the counterargument to your own argument?
|
| If they backpaddled is likely because there was enough of a
| negative reaction to raise concern.
|
| I believe it's more likely they are trying to figure out how to
| announce the next deadline more quietly without breaking too
| many laws.
| polote wrote:
| No, because I dont think I act like most people. Most people
| don't even understand the privacy changes, they just see that
| 'something' happened on Whatsaap this week
| young_unixer wrote:
| If I was them, I would do exactly what they're doing.
|
| A partial exodus doesn't work. With this delay, maybe half of
| the people who were going to switch won't end up switching.
|
| By boiling the frog slowly, they make sure that a mass exodus
| never happens, only partial exoduses that end up dying and
| tiring people out.
| mekoka wrote:
| Too bad. I was really looking forward to the great exodus of Feb
| 8th.
| KMag wrote:
| Translation: "Oops, sorry we turned up the flame under the pot of
| frogs too quickly. We will boil them more slowly in the future."
|
| (I've also heard it claimed that it's an urban legend that frogs
| won't jump if you cook them slowly. But, maybe it's an urban
| legend that it's an urban legend.)
| Judgmentality wrote:
| > (I've also heard it claimed that it's an urban legend that
| frogs won't jump if you cook them slowly. But, maybe it's an
| urban legend that it's an urban legend.)
|
| Come on, it only takes a moment of critical thinking to realize
| no animal would allow itself to be boiled alive, be it slowly
| or quickly.
|
| If you're in a bath and you increase the heat until you're hot,
| do you keep increasing the heat or do you jump out when it's
| too hot?
| blackearl wrote:
| I've jumped into a hot tub before.
| KMag wrote:
| The legend is that if they're submerged in hot water and
| heated slowly enough, the brain starts having problems due to
| the heat before the skin gets too uncomfortable.
|
| > no animal would allow itself to be boiled alive
|
| You're surely not suggesting frogs have a theory of self, and
| while there's evolutionary pressure against walking into
| forest fires or too hot sun-baked rocks, there are very few
| environments where animals would be subjected to slowly
| increasing water temperatures that eventually reach fatal
| temperatures. If it's not obvious that there's evolutionary
| pressure for this situation, and we don't think frogs have a
| conscious self-preservation, I wouldn't be so quick to
| dismiss the legend out-of-hand.
| krzrak wrote:
| > Come on, it only takes a moment of critical thinking to
| realize no animal would allow itself to be boiled alive, be
| it slowly or quickly.
|
| It's funny to read that, until you realize, that it is
| exactly what humans are doing in regards to global warming.
| encom wrote:
| I'm sure global warming isn't _that_ bad. We have a long
| way to go before we reach Venus levels.
| stabbles wrote:
| It's a common expression. I think I heard it first in An
| Unconvenient Truth about climate change.
| edgarvaldes wrote:
| "My 9th grade science teacher always said that if you put a
| frog in boiling hot water, it would jump out. But put it in
| cold water, and heat it up gradually, it would slowly boil
| to death."
|
| Harry Dalton (Pierce Brosnan) in Dante's Peak (1997)
| idlewords wrote:
| Cats have been known to sleep on radiators until they get
| heatstroke.
| mekoka wrote:
| Why would critical thinking exclude the possibility? There
| are situations where death comes before the threshold of
| discomfort.
| dastx wrote:
| Like getting hit by a bus. Damn it Carl, how am I meant to
| maintain your code now?
| Judgmentality wrote:
| > There are situations where death comes before the
| threshold of discomfort.
|
| Not for anything we can actually sense. Volume,
| temperature, pressure - you will feel wildly uncomfortable
| long before any of these are extreme enough to seriously
| impact your health.
|
| Is there any example of something we can feel, but we don't
| feel uncomfortable before it kills us? All I can think of
| are drugs.
| gbrown wrote:
| Oxygen deprivation
| yissp wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freediving_blackout
| maybe?
| throwaway2245 wrote:
| > you will feel wildly uncomfortable long before any of
| these are extreme enough to seriously impact your health.
|
| Radiation, disease, drugs (chemical poisoning), falling,
| can all pass the point of inevitable death before you
| notice that they are a problem.
|
| People frequently die unnecessarily of heart attacks,
| because they don't realise that the symptoms merit an
| urgent response.
| echelon wrote:
| Or that heat sensitive proteins in some animal respond to
| extreme gradients.
| nitrogen wrote:
| Here's an experiment you can try at home. It doesn't prove
| that humans or frogs won't notice extreme temperatures, but
| it does show that it would be reasonable to believe that it's
| _conceivable_ that some animal can only detect relative
| temperature.
|
| 1. Prepare three bowls of water, one cold (but bearable), one
| hot (but bearable), and one lukewarm.
|
| 2. Place one hand in the cold water, and the other hand in
| the hot water.
|
| 3. Wait a minute or two.
|
| 4. Place both hands in the lukewarm water at the same time.
|
| 5. WTF, is this hot or is it cold?
| mkl wrote:
| It's a myth, probably, though it was thought to be true for a
| long time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog
| suyash wrote:
| best interpretation right here!
| mkl95 wrote:
| I have wanted to leave Whatsapp for years, but I can't
| realistically do it since most people assume it's your messaging
| app of choice here (including coworkers / bosses).
|
| I would actually prefer it these changes weren't delayed since it
| will also delay the eventual user exodus to Signal / Telegram.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Just leave. If your coworkers and bosses want to text you,
| they'll do it via Signal.
| [deleted]
| Debug_Overload wrote:
| This is just not realistic, and not how the world works. "Oh,
| you expect me to be available on the app we used to
| communicate regularly and most people in our circle use? Too
| bad, I just dumped it and got on this new app, so you guys
| better install it just to have the privilege to communicate
| with me."
|
| Umm, no. I use both WhatsApp and Signal (way before this
| hysteria began) but the "just leave" mentality isn't
| realistic. Most people don't care about this stuff enough to
| install a new app and start using it. Even for people who
| will join it, it takes time. The network effect is still
| there.
|
| Being on HN too much and/or having social circles full of
| people who think like you misleads people.
| pmlnr wrote:
| > but the "just leave" mentality isn't realistic
|
| Oh, but it is. You just need to accept a drop in your
| social circle.
| dastx wrote:
| "I'm sorry, I don't have WhatsApp. I am available via Signal,
| Email, and failing both of those, also available via text
| messages."
|
| Problem solved.
| jonp888 wrote:
| It doesn't work like that.
|
| For instance I am part of a volunteer organisation, that
| amongst other things runs some Covid-19 vaccination centers.
| At a local level this is organised through a WhatsApp group
| with about 50 members. For now, I am nothing special in this
| organisation, no-one with special skills that would be called
| upon to do particular tasks, just a worker drone.
|
| If I left the WhatsApp group, the only result is that I would
| never hear about anything that was going on ever again. I
| would effectively be leaving the organisation too.
| eknkc wrote:
| Nope.
|
| Everything happens in WhatsApp here. Just moved to a new
| building and they added me to a whatsapp group for
| announcements / requests etc. Also, movers, utility people
| etc would call and ask for a "location". Not an address. A
| "location", meaning sharing a location via whatsapp. Noone
| even mentions the name whatsapp. It is implied.
|
| If you have children, most schools have whatsapp groups for
| parents and teachers to get in contact.
|
| I mean I can find much more. Not having WhatsApp is not an
| option here. It is almost like not having a cell phone.
| duke_core wrote:
| I live in the subcontinent and 100% agree with you, I don't
| know most westerners are able to comprehend how much
| Whatsapp is tied into our day to day lives. It also plays a
| huge huge hand in spreading fake news here through message
| forwards, most politicians here pay off journalists who
| maintain several large group chats where they spread
| misinformation (exponentially)
| helmholtz wrote:
| An important thing to ask yourself is "Why are you
| commenting?" This isn't a dig but a real question. I
| don't mean to belittle you or the GP. Is it just idle
| ranting or are you hoping to find a solution?
|
| If the former, my complete sympathies. Carrying around
| this low-level resentment about an app all while having
| to use it isn't great.
|
| But if it's the latter, then the solution is obvious.
| Delete the app and then let the chips fall where they
| may. I guarantee there is a grumpy 60 year old in your
| life who just never ditched his Nokia and "it works for
| him". It's clear that you can't have it both ways.
|
| I make this comment because too often on the internet
| people will comment on a self-help article, or someone
| sharing their success story, or a piece of advice with
| "Yeah, but it doesn't work for me because..."
|
| Well, great? Sorry to hear that? This topic, then, is not
| for you? Carry on and good luck? It's just too many
| people expect universal solutions that MUST work
| EVERYWHERE without exceptions.
| corford wrote:
| Where is here?
| [deleted]
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Why do you think Facebook bought Whatsapp for billions of
| dollars? because they like serving users for free?
| pmlnr wrote:
| "This means we will always protect your personal conversations
| with end-to-end encryption" / https://blog.whatsapp.com/giving-
| more-time-for-our-recent-up... /
|
| Why is "personal" present in that sentence?
| electriclove wrote:
| Wash, rinse, repeat.. the FB MO
| eecc wrote:
| I dunno, but this time I managed to flip 3 of my most active chat
| groups to Signal. I'm not letting this change go to waste... it's
| the chance of a lifetime.
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