[HN Gopher] WhatsApp to move ahead with privacy update despite b...
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WhatsApp to move ahead with privacy update despite backlash
Author : sidcool
Score : 520 points
Date : 2021-02-19 13:16 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| TrianguloY wrote:
| If I don't contact any WhatsApp Business (only personal numbers
| from friends or relatives), I live in Europe, and I don't have
| Facebook: which changes will the new privacy policy imply for me?
|
| All the news I see are mixing opinions and facts, and all the
| official sources I check specifically say that only apply for
| communications with WhatsApp Business accounts, so I'm really
| intrigued as to what the changes really are on my situation.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| Of course they are. Facebook doesn't care and if you still use
| them or their products you are endorsing their behavior.
|
| https://signal.org/
| minikites wrote:
| The free market continues to reward Facebook, so this move must
| be good. I can't wait to see what the free market has in store
| next!
| ulzeraj wrote:
| Please refrain to use cheap politic slogans. You are not forced
| to use Facebook stuff. Use Signal, Threema, Telegram, Discord,
| Slack, Snapchat, Matrix. Create your own. As much as I don't
| like Facebook's wechat its not like you are forced to use their
| application out of obligation or lack of options.
| Bakary wrote:
| It's not technically forced, but in practice you are often at
| the mercy of specific apps for many interactions. In many
| regions, not having Whatsapp or Messenger or WeChat can cause
| you all sorts of grief and annoyances.
| zepearl wrote:
| I agree => I'll try to expand?
|
| In the case of WeChat, which from what I heard/read is
| nowadays deeply rooted in the life of Chinese people (used
| in China not just to "chat" but as well to perform
| payments, rate shops and even people, get credit ratings,
| maybe more), getting rid of something like that would be
| reaaally hard, even if officially the app is not forced on
| anybody.
|
| Assuming e.g. that Facebook would create its
| "Libra"-currency, it would then make it available at least
| within Whatsapp, and when people would start using it (for
| any reason) then it would be 1000 times harder to get rid
| of Whatsapp-the-chat even if it would stomp on all possible
| individual rights because the "need" to have that whatsapp-
| payment(&future rating&whatever-method) would be stronger
| than any potential "future" loss of privacy.
| minikites wrote:
| >its not like you are forced to use their application out of
| obligation
|
| Can I have my aging father call you when he needs help with
| Signal? I don't think you understand the network effects of
| messaging programs.
| conradev wrote:
| Does WhatsApp share a lot of data with Facebook? Yes.
|
| Does this terms of service update change anything regarding that?
| No.
|
| Has Facebook eroded all trust in itself such that no one really
| cares? Yes.
|
| https://www.wired.com/story/whatsapp-facebook-data-share-not...
| pmlnr wrote:
| A group of my friends asked to set up a groupchat recently, our
| requirements varied. Among them:
|
| - needs to be simple (not all of them are techies)
|
| - need to be possible to run on desktop without any mobile need
|
| - not Facebook (my requirement)
|
| So I went and set an XMPP server up on the same machine I have my
| email and webserver, and wrote a quick guide on how to install
| blabber.im (a Conversations fork), and register on the server.
|
| With a turnserver running in the background, it can do
| voice/video calls as well.
|
| The room is not e2e encrypted _yet_ - that is because I wasn 't
| able to get the desktop person to install the omemo plugin for
| gajim, but that is the sole reason. We'll get there.
|
| There is no history delivered on first connect - e2e encryption
| would prevent that anyway, similarly to Signal or Whatsapp.
|
| PS: "Why not matrix?" Because at the moment, I despise the matrix
| clients, all the ones I tried, and the purple-matrix plugin for
| pidgin/adium/etc is long abandoned, and has no encryption
| support.
|
| --
|
| EDIT
|
| OK, for those who don't understand what I wrote: I spun my OWN
| XMPP server. You don't have to, you can use any XMPP/Jabber
| server, for example any here: https://list.jabber.at/
|
| From a user perspective: get and app, register a user/password on
| the selected server, done. That is simple.
|
| --
|
| EDIT2
|
| > There is no history delivered on first connect
|
| This is a choice. The tech/option exists:
| https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0313.html
| iagovar wrote:
| That's not my idea of simple. Telegram works for me.
| vinay427 wrote:
| Telegram has an incredibly primitive setup for their private
| conversations (E2E encryption). It doesn't work at all on
| desktop clients, and there's no supported way to backup or
| transfer devices so changing or losing a phone means you lose
| the conversation history with no option to backup, even
| preemptively.
| kitkat_new wrote:
| Then you should try a different ones maybe - it'll be an
| upgrade for sure
| sprkwd wrote:
| That doesn't feel simple. I installed Signal.
| justusthane wrote:
| Yes, Signal is good, but the parent said that one of their
| criteria was "need to be possible to run on desktop without
| any mobile need". Signal doesn't meet that.
| vinay427 wrote:
| Signal's desktop client, unlike WhatsApp and Telegram, at
| least supports E2E encrypted conversations while a phone is
| disconnected or off. You only need access to a phone when
| it falls out of sync which is increasingly rare. That's a
| huge plus in my book, and after drastic improvements over
| the last few years the desktop client now seems rather
| stable in my experience.
| TheJoYo wrote:
| Signal is the bare minimum and can run along side Element and
| ActivityPub just fine.
|
| If you want to avoid Google Play-Services then Element and
| ActivityPub are much easier to use.
| pmlnr wrote:
| > That doesn't feel simple.
|
| What doesn't feel simple from the user perspective?
|
| Get https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=im.blabber.
| mes... , start it, follow the screen.
|
| Or https://gajim.org/download/ for desktop, register on first
| run.
|
| Or https://siskin.im/ for iOS, register on first run.
|
| If that's not simple enough, we need to nuke the whole
| smartphone scene.
|
| + the steps above were _my_ steps, the steps of an XMPP
| server provider, not the steps of a user.
| btmiller wrote:
| I'm not sure which reality you live in where begging an
| individual on desktop to install more things is simple.
| pmlnr wrote:
| ???
|
| Because asking them to install another app on the phone
| is?
|
| Seriously, what's the difference?
| CA0DA wrote:
| why did you not go with a self hosted matrix (aka element.io)?
| pmlnr wrote:
| Read the whole entry, please?
| secfirstmd wrote:
| Life probably would have been much easier for you if you had
| just used a Matrix server.
| pmlnr wrote:
| LOL, no. I've been trying to run my Matrix server for a while
| without serious hiccups, with audio/video support,
| federation, irc appservice, and it's a clusterf*ck.
|
| Plus if you cared to read the whole entry, I have the reason
| there why not matrix.
| kitkat_new wrote:
| what exactly should we read?
| pkulak wrote:
| Interesting. I've found Element to be seriously polished, nice
| looking, and a joy to use across web, Mac, Linux, iOS and
| Android.
| przmk wrote:
| There is history delivery on first connect on Matrix whenever I
| set-up a new device.
|
| I don't think XMPP has any future. It's a hassle to set-up and
| I have yet to see a really modern looking client. Blabber does
| not fit that at all.
| pmlnr wrote:
| > There is history delivery on first connect on Matrix
| whenever I set-up a new device.
|
| Not for encrypted rooms.
|
| --
|
| EDIT: XMPP has https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0313.html
| which can deliver history for the clients that support it. I
| just haven't set it up.
| Arathorn wrote:
| Encrypted history should appear fine on Matrix when you log
| in on a new device - either by gossiping from an old
| device, or restoring from encrypted key backup if you
| created one.
| pmlnr wrote:
| "On first log in" means you've never been in the room
| before with any device.
| Boulth6 wrote:
| You may want to check out Dino.im. For easy XMPP there is also
| Quicksy.im that's a fork of Conversations (from the author of
| Conversations) but using contact book for people discovery.
| pmlnr wrote:
| I tried Dino, Gajim, Psi, Psi+, Empathy, but I still prefer
| the UI/UX of Pidgin. It knows all I need at the moment, with
| the exception of Transport commands.
| mfer wrote:
| In the book, "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism"[1], it talks
| about the MO for the big tech companies. How they push and often
| subtly change things slowly. The book provides a number of
| examples of this.
|
| I never expected FB to walk back the privacy change. I even
| expect their full expectations to be in place in a couple years.
|
| It's what they have successfully done in the past.
|
| [1] https://bookshop.org/books/the-age-of-surveillance-
| capitalis...
| Person5478 wrote:
| In the book "ordinary men" it describes a group of conscripted
| soldiers during the nazi regime. They were former police for
| Poland, so not even German Nazi's, but by the end they were
| doing things like taking pregnant women out in fields and
| shooting them.
|
| The takeaway from the book is that you can get ordinary people
| to do extraordinarily evil acts by asking them to do more
| heinous things in small steps.
|
| The gist is that anyone who thinks they COULDN'T do horrible
| things is the most at risk of this type of manipulation.
|
| The idea of a slippery slope is a very real thing.
|
| edit: One of the most harrowing descriptions from the book imo
| is a description of an event where they were killing so many
| jews it eventually turned night and they attempted to use
| lights from cars to keep going, but that proved unsuccessful so
| they were FORCED to wait until the next day to finish up.
|
| Until you read things like that you don't fully grasp just how
| horrific the holocaust was. We all know it was horrible in an
| abstract way, but those stories really bring it home in a more
| concrete manner.
| musha68k wrote:
| Indeed, a powerful trick out of the manipulator's playbook.
| Also thinking of "Death by a thousand cuts", "slowly boiling a
| frog", etc.
|
| "Creeping normality (also called gradualism, or landscape
| amnesia[1]) is a process by which a major change can be
| accepted as normal and acceptable if it happens slowly through
| small, often unnoticeable, increments of change. The change
| could otherwise be regarded as objectionable if it took place
| in a single step or short period."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creeping_normality
| tambourine_man wrote:
| It's really hard for me to understand why and how something fails
| or succeeds to grab the public's attention.
|
| I've been complaining and refusing to use WhatsApp for years,
| mostly because it's centralized at the worst possible company.
| But a boycott of one is not a powerful move and no one cared.
|
| Now, for whatever reason, nothing has effectively changed and
| millions suddenly care.
|
| I mean, I'm glad they finally do, don't think it will make much
| of a difference, as network effect is a very strong pull, but I'm
| flabbergasted nonetheless.
| edoloughlin wrote:
| _Now, for whatever reason, nothing has effectively changed and
| millions suddenly care_
|
| This was discussed on a You Are Not So Smart [1] episode some
| time over the last few months (I had a look but couldn't find
| it).
|
| The basic idea was that collective behaviour can change in an
| instant because of multiple pressures that have been building
| over time and looking for a single cause (or trigger) is
| fruitless because no one event has any great significance per
| se.
|
| The closest that Google would bring me is a paper on 'Threshold
| Models of Collective Behavior' [2].
|
| [1] https://youarenotsosmart.com/
|
| [2] https://www.jstor.org/stable/2778111?seq=1
| tambourine_man wrote:
| It's certainly an emergent behavior of some kind, yes. Thanks
| for the links.
| akamaka wrote:
| Your complaining was working, just very slowly, like water
| dripping on a stone.
| oaiey wrote:
| It is this one single spark. An journalist writing a story. A
| user complaining to his right buddies. The one executive of a
| big company making an announcement.
|
| It is a spark. Or a butterfly ;)
| fartcannon wrote:
| You're not alone. I have been doing the same, but not just
| WhatsApp, also Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple.. Any company
| that abuses it's power to lock down, sell data from or attempt
| to control their users.
|
| It's often pretty lonely. Ive had friends simply stop talking
| with me. Ive been left out of weddings, birthdays, etc. I guess
| it's like trying to be a vegan at a BBQ.
|
| Worst part is that when what Id feared comes true, they just
| move on to the next worse option and the cycle continues.
| secfirstmd wrote:
| Dont you think that maybe you are taking things a bit far if
| you are losing lots of friends over it? What's your threat
| model?
|
| You can bridge a number of these services if you want. Or use
| a locked down device for them. FAANG privacy crap causing you
| to lose friends is kinda letting them win a bit too much.
| levosmetalo wrote:
| The most secure communication is the communication that
| doesn't happen. He can be pretty sure his communication
| channel will not be abused by some big advertising corp.
| fartcannon wrote:
| Bah, what friends are they that ignore someone because they
| don't have Facebook or believe in a better future for
| everyone. Better off without them, in my opinion. As I
| mentioned, they just move on to the next worse thing and
| the cycle of stupid choices continues.
| tambourine_man wrote:
| I have mixed feelings on this. One the one hand, yes,
| true friends will use smoke signals to reach you if
| needed.
|
| On the other, like you, I've missed many events of people
| I like but am not that close to, because everyone is on
| WhatsApp, why didn't you come, oh, right, you're that one
| guy.
| smhg wrote:
| Over here (in Belgium and The Netherlands at least) so many
| neighborhoods have signs promoting local WhatsApp groups,
| complete with the logo [0]. Often to 'prevent crime'. Local
| municipalities install and pay for them. It is so awkward to
| see.
|
| [0]
| https://cdn.nieuws.nl/media/sites/305/2016/05/14195316/Borde...
| tsukurimashou wrote:
| I was a bit "shocked" by that when I moved to the
| Netherlands, everyone there uses it and the government seems
| to have a responsibility in that. Between the signs like you
| said and the possibility to contact town hall to take an
| appointment and other government related services via
| Whatsapp (I can certainly get why people use it, because it's
| much more convenient that having to make a phone call).
| comfyinnernet wrote:
| Someone should paste Zuckerberg's face in the middle of the
| logo whenever they see one of those.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| At least the trend seems to have halted for now. These
| abhorrent signs are completely pointless as a crime
| prevention device (obviously).
|
| It's free advertising in two ways. One is for
| Facebook/WhatsApp (the use of these signs further normalizes
| WhatsApp and strengthens the brand), and the other is as a
| friendly gesture to criminals: here live people who can't
| afford fancy alarm systems and private security
| subscriptions, but can afford plenty of easily stolen devices
| and other loot.
| ActorNightly wrote:
| >It's really hard for me to understand why and how something
| fails or succeeds to grab the public's attention.
|
| If you can collectively get outraged about something with a
| group of people, you tend to feel "woke" and belonging to a
| cause.
|
| We are to the point in media, especially online smaller
| publications, where if you see a story that you feel like you
| should get outraged about, you can safely discard it as either
| false or at best extremely biased.
| wtf_is_up wrote:
| This is how I feel about Robinhood.
| rapnie wrote:
| A question to anyone that already made the jump away from
| Whatsapp:
|
| Do people that used to msg me still see my entry in their own
| accounts list, after I closed it?
|
| And if they do, do they get notified if still sending msgs there,
| or are these just shown as forever unread?
| globular-toast wrote:
| My experience with people from my own contacts disappearing is
| you'll still be on their contacts list and their messages will
| go into a black hole. If they're paying attention they will
| notice that all of your details, including your picture, will
| revert to whatever they have stored in their phone contacts
| list (which might be nothing).
| endisneigh wrote:
| I hope this is a reality check for anyone who's surprised that
| WhatsApp, owned by an advertising tech company, would do this.
| globular-toast wrote:
| What backlash? If they'd seen any noticeable backlash they
| wouldn't be going ahead.
| bkirkby wrote:
| In the stickiness of whatsapp, I caused something of a stir with
| my family. After the prev announcement and having a general
| distrust of facebook that had grown over the years, I deleted my
| Facebook account and made the announcement in the family whatsapp
| group that I was leaving whatsapp and they could join me on
| signal if they wished.
|
| I then deleted my whatsapp account.
|
| There was much wailing and grumpiness and some refusals to join
| me because people didn't want to use a new chat app. I was
| genuinely surprised that whatsapp had become so sticky for these
| people and had to mea culpa to smooth things over.
| sneak wrote:
| This is the correct move. Every person who stays on WhatsApp
| makes using WhatsApp more useful and attractive.
|
| You have to delete your account there.
| pkulak wrote:
| Somewhat the same for me, though I'm in a bit later stage than
| you are. I moved my family to Signal as well, but we all got a
| bit frustrated with the lack of features. No (good) Chromebook
| support, no message editing, the HARD requirement on owning a
| phone (which locked out my kids), no message history or even a
| way to backup messages, etc.
|
| A few weeks ago I spun up a tiny EC2 instance, threw a matrix
| server on it, and moved us all over to that. It's been
| wonderful. All the features we want, plus I own the whole thing
| and therefor can do administrator things like reset passwords.
|
| In a year or two will I regret being forced to admin a remote
| server that I've since forgotten everything about? History says
| yes, but who knows. It's been a joy so far.
| retromario wrote:
| How does the Matrix experience compare to Signal, feature-
| wise? I ran into similar frustrations with Signal's lack of
| polish in certain areas when trying to move family over.
|
| There's something to be said for why WhatsApp is so popular,
| it feels like the most full-featured and polished
| communications app.
| pkulak wrote:
| Every issue I had with Signal, and listed here, is solved.
|
| One issue I have with the Element iOS client is that it
| doesn't respect system font sizing. So, for older
| relatives, that app can't be used. I put my mom on
| something called "Fluffy Chat" though, which does respect
| font sizes. If Element fixes that, I'll move her back
| again. It's kinda nice having multiple clients to choose
| from, though Element is by far the most polished.
|
| https://github.com/vector-im/element-ios/issues/3245
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| These at great points about Signal I hadn't considered. Maybe
| I'll run a matrix server too. How does the experience compare
| to e.g. whatsapp?
| pkulak wrote:
| I haven't used WhatsApp much, I've just co-opted this whole
| thing to move people off SMS. But, comparing Element now to
| WhatsApp when I used it years ago, Element is more polished
| with more features.
|
| It's dead easy to download the app and sign up on
| Matrix.org though, just to test it all out before you go
| through the trouble of setting up your own homeserver.
| bkirkby wrote:
| i love this idea! i think i'll do that as well just to test
| it out.
| meibo wrote:
| I've experienced a lot of the same.
|
| I think the main cause for this is that WhatsApp still just
| works for most everyone, especially non-technical people - it's
| still a great product with many features, there's no settings
| you need to change, it's very reliable, moving to a new phone
| is literally just entering your phone number and allowing
| access(no accounts), etc.
|
| Some people followed me to Signal but there really hasn't been
| a lot of interaction, and a few of them even moved back after
| the huge downtime it had right when the big news about the new
| policy broke.
| dylan604 wrote:
| >I was genuinely surprised that whatsapp had become so sticky
|
| Why was this surprising? In general, people are lazy, at least
| creatures of habit if lazy is too strong. They have an app, it
| works for them, things in the background where they don't even
| know exists change that affects them zero, and you fly off the
| handle and disappear. You're the only person that had issues,
| and you're trying to buck their system.
|
| Just because you (royal you, not you you) have strong
| moralistic feelings towards a company doesn't mean everyone
| else in your circles feel the same way. There is no bigger
| zealot than a new convert, and people get tired of hearing
| about it. To non-techie types, people screaming out against FB
| sound just like cult members.
| bkirkby wrote:
| you're probably right. i think everyone would have been fine
| with "crazy uncle brian going off on a tangent," and leaving
| me be, except i didn't tangent.
|
| when i left facebook i just left and when i left whatsapp i
| told people about signal two weeks ahead and then just left
| with that one message.
|
| i think the problem was that i had convinced the patriarch of
| the group to join me and people wanted to be in contact with
| him, so the dissatisfaction was directed toward me.
|
| ironically, i was the one who talked down the group from the
| fearfully dire outlook about social media when we discussed
| the netflix "documentary" "the social dilemma" a few months
| back.
|
| i thought the latter part of the documentary that had the
| predictions of our society being destroyed because of the
| revelations exposed about what social media is doing to us
| was cringe and i explained to the group why.
|
| OTOH, i told people "yeah, the first part is totally true and
| not a revelation. they are absolutely hacking your social
| biology to get you more engaged in what they have to offer.
| it's not a surprise to anyone really as the ML systems and
| technology that optimize for that are well understood and
| pretty standard. heck, i've even written some of those
| algorithms myself."
|
| that's actually part of why i left facebook. i realized that
| i had become complacent about things i should not have become
| complacent about.
|
| fwiw, my productivity and happiness have increased
| dramatically since i left facebook/whatsapp. YMMV
| Cd00d wrote:
| That's interesting. I had the opposite experience. I told all
| my text-chain friends and family that I was leaving WhatsApp
| and invited them to Signal. All of them had moved over within 2
| days.
|
| Though, most of those people I motivated to move to WhatsApp
| years ago when I wanted to switch from iPhone to Android. So,
| it's already a specific group.
| deanCommie wrote:
| Honestly, it "just works".
|
| It's fast, it's simple. Its UX is "flagship" (unlike, sorry,
| Signal - who I'm giving a chance, but the UX is unquestionably
| more "open source *nix product"-adjacent)
|
| A few years back I got tired that my friends were sprawled
| across many different platforms, and I tried a bunch of
| different clients and found Whatsapp the most attractive. I
| made a pitch to the ones who weren't already on there to move
| over. And it stuck, even for my own parents.
| gitowiec wrote:
| I am looking for the Whatsapp chats offline viewer. I would like
| to store my chats on my laptop and view it without needing
| Whatsapp on my phone. Currently I know that chats can be viewed
| (and chat) on web.whatsapp.com, and I found this app
| https://andreas-mausch.de/whatsapp-viewer/ which makes it
| possible on Windows (and it seems outdated because of lots of
| bugs on GitHub). But I would like to view chats on Linux
| computer, it could also be an web app. Do you know such
| application?
| pmlnr wrote:
| light way, but not available everywhere: export the chats one
| by one, as per https://faq.whatsapp.com/android/chats/how-to-
| save-your-chat...
|
| Saves them as text files, copy them off the phone.
|
| hard way: root the phone, copy the database, decrypt it with
| https://stackpointer.io/security/decrypt-whatsapp-crypt12-da...
| and the key on the phone. The decrypted db files are
| overengineered sqlite databases.
| drummer wrote:
| So I guess Signal is going to be offline again for a few days.
| roland35 wrote:
| I deleted my account, although a big part of it was how Whatsapp
| was able to automatically add lots of my contacts (from my phone
| number I believe?) to my friends list automatically. I wasn't
| really excited about myself possibly being on other people's
| contact list without my knowledge!
| frongpik wrote:
| In the next episode: fb automatically creates public fb accounts
| for all whatsapp users and publishes your chat messages on your
| timeline for everyone to see.
| znpy wrote:
| I always denied consent to the requests from whatsapp, and it's
| still working.
|
| I wonder if they're doing a meh and surveilling me anyway.
| perryizgr8 wrote:
| They extended the cutoff date to few months later.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| There need to be steps taken to make WhatsApp into a utility in
| countries where it is being used as such. If your life cannot
| function with WhatsApp, then governments cannot cede control to
| foreign corporations. In India, Brazil, and Some European
| countries that is the case, as public services and infrastructure
| have shifted onto WhatsApp. It doesn't mean Facebook can't make
| money on WhatsApp, but it does mean they can't unilaterally
| change the rules.
| Bluestein wrote:
| They waited 'till the news cycle waned, and then did whatever
| they pleased anyway. Par for the course ...
| qznc wrote:
| My hope is that this triggers a second backlash.
| Bakary wrote:
| But we just got proof that backlashes can be ignored, so
| what's the point?
| qznc wrote:
| Ignored? Lots and lots of people installed Signal or
| Telegram. Some of them will stay.
| ineedasername wrote:
| Yeah, pretty much PR Crisis Communications 101. I'm at some
| point they were also _deeply concerned_ and promised that they
| would conduct a _thorough investigation_
| egwor wrote:
| I'm so disappointed in this. Whatsapp is a functional tool. It
| was successful since it worked.
|
| Facebook has entirely failed to utilise it - to allow external
| systems to connect in so that businesses can do business on
| there. The voice calls are also a disaster.
|
| They've now come along to start messing with the privacy to start
| selling ads. It is insane that they're able to make such a mess
| of this. Is there a word for anti-innovation?
|
| Considering that they're linking Facebook ad platform with the
| chats, and they're forcing this upon everyone, why isn't this
| covered by the monopoly laws? Most of us paid some money for the
| app.
| nabla9 wrote:
| FTC sued Facebook for illegal monopolization over this. For
| some reason, Zuckerberg does not care.
| https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2020/12/ftc-s...
|
| >Facebook has engaged in a systematic strategy--including its
| 2012 acquisition of up-and-coming rival Instagram, its 2014
| acquisition of the mobile messaging app WhatsApp, and the
| imposition of anticompetitive conditions on software developers
| --to eliminate threats to its monopoly. This course of conduct
| harms competition, leaves consumers with few choices for
| personal social networking, and deprives advertisers of the
| benefits of competition.
|
| >The FTC is seeking a permanent injunction in federal court
| that could, among other things: require divestitures of assets,
| including Instagram and WhatsApp; prohibit Facebook from
| imposing anticompetitive conditions on software developers; and
| require Facebook to seek prior notice and approval for future
| mergers and acquisitions.
|
| When FB bought WhatsApp and Instagram they made explicit
| promises to regulators not to do this in order to get
| permission.
|
| To make things even worse. Zuck wrote in email "It is better to
| buy than compete," after buying Instagram.
| tchalla wrote:
| > When FB bought WhatsApp and Instagram they made explicit
| promises to regulators not to do this in order to get
| permission
|
| Do you have copy of those legal binding promises?
| sofixa wrote:
| https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_17
| _...
|
| Here's the EU's fine for them lying about account linking,
| at the very least.
| newswasboring wrote:
| Even if its not legally binding, even if they have said
| something like this in press it would be interesting to
| know. I cannot find anything though.
| foolmeonce wrote:
| If I remember correctly, FB said everything behind closed
| doors to Signal's leadership and had them blog and handle
| PR about how much reassurance they received that nothing
| would change. This is probably why Acton became the
| largest donor to Signal.
| justapassenger wrote:
| > Facebook has entirely failed to utilise it - to allow
| external systems to connect in so that businesses can do
| business on there.
|
| They weren't allowed to do that under old TOS, and the whole
| point of this update is to allow data sharing when contacting
| businesses, that will allow building business tools.
|
| https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/security-and-privacy/answer...
| dillondoyle wrote:
| Yeah I don't understand the outrage?
|
| It brings more functionality like Messenger to interface with
| businesses - which I have found value in. For instance United
| service there was quicker and better than using the phone
| line to change/re-book flights.
|
| Maybe I'm missing something?
| quantummkv wrote:
| The outrage is due to Facebook being involved. No one (very
| rightfully) trusts Facebook with their data. I doubt there
| would have been any outrage at this level if an independent
| WhatsApp was doing this.
| lxgr wrote:
| > The outrage is due to Facebook being involved.
|
| Does that make spreading what's effectively
| disinformation ok, though?
|
| I'd argue that there are more than enough angles to
| legitimately criticize Facebook. Why make one up?
| justusthane wrote:
| No, it's legitimate to be a WhatsApp user and to not want
| Facebook to have more of your data.
| lxgr wrote:
| How is Facebook having more of my data in this scenario?
|
| Only if I'm talking a business on WhatsApp (which is
| optional and will hopefully stay that way), and only if
| the business I'm talking to uses Facebook as a service
| provider (instead of, say, Twilio or a self-hosted
| solution) does something change for me.
|
| Facebook has indicated that businesses processing chats
| through Facebook will be clearly indicated as doing so,
| which hopefully puts enough pressure on businesses
| respecting their customers' privacy to not do so.
|
| Businesses not respecting people's privacy can already
| choose to share arbitrary data with Facebook for
| advertisement purposes, so what changes?
|
| Now if Facebook was to discontinue the existing
| E2E-encrypted business chat integration, that would be
| something to get upset about.
|
| I'm really afraid that the only lesson that Facebook (and
| others) have learned in all of this is that TOS changes
| are best hidden in the fine print of opting into some
| user-visible new feature via some dark UX pattern, like
| e.g. Google commonly does.
| Groxx wrote:
| At least part of the outrage is that, while _that use_ is
| quite reasonable, the TOS did not constrain the sharing _to
| only that use_.
|
| So they were saying one thing in legal terms (we can share
| your data with facebook to improve facebook products) and
| another elsewhere (we _will only_ share minimal data about
| and with businesses you communicate with, within this
| feature).
|
| Personally I trust them to adhere to their TOS far more
| than their newsroom blog. So while I believe their short-
| term plans are reasonable, in the long-term Facebook has
| demonstrated repeatedly that they will do whatever they can
| get away with.
| lxgr wrote:
| > Yeah I don't understand the outrage?
|
| Same here. Don't get me wrong, I'm as deeply suspicious of
| everything that Facebook touches as the next person.
|
| But here Facebook is seemingly doing a pretty
| normal/expected thing, and people (and more or less
| reputable news sources) portray it as a data-privacy
| scandal?
|
| What's worst is that at least in my country, at least half
| of all articles about this were mentioning _Telegram_ as a
| "secure, encrypted alternative to WhatsApp". This makes me
| very sad.
| pera wrote:
| WhatsApp users who in 2016 opted out of sharing data with
| third parties are now being asked by Facebook to either
| accept a privacy policy that states their metadata can be
| shared with third parties or stop chatting with friends and
| family through their app.
|
| A poster bellow in this thread quoted a Wired article where
| some FB representative says they will "honor" the opt-out,
| yet this is not stated anywhere in the privacy policy as
| far as I can tell. I think it would be trivial for Facebook
| to make this clear in their new policy.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| I understand the objective on making (more) money.
|
| Why have 1bn users and make $1 per user? Isn't it better if
| then have 200mn users and make $20 per user?
|
| For me this 'shedding freeloaders and privacy-oriented-users'
| helps them more than not.
|
| We have discussed pricing and volumes of customers before in
| this forum, multiple times, and for multiple
| products/services.
|
| Is it better to have 1000 users and make $1 from each
| ($1000), or it is better to have 100 users and make $50 from
| each ($5000 and less support/maintenance/infrastructure
| costs)?
|
| Facebook's obligation is to the shareholders. Shareholders
| want bigger pie. Shareholders will get a bigger pie.
| Apparently FB didn't lose enough users to be scared.
| Reality/facts drive this.
|
| In a related note, I installed Viber. It asked me to share
| data with advertisers. I tapped to see the list. I scrolled
| (on my android phone) VERY fast, for 22 seconds to go through
| it.
| srswtf123 wrote:
| > Facebook's obligation is to the shareholders.
|
| This is the problem. Businesses _must_ take on additional
| legal responsibilities and not simply say "we care about
| profits -- at the expense of everything else".
|
| This will require legislation, and perhaps and end to "MBA-
| culture", which seems to promote sociopaths to the highest
| peaks of society.
| thereare5lights wrote:
| Maximizing shareholder value was one of the most toxic
| ideologies of the late 20th century. I've seen more
| people speaking out against this recently and hopefully
| this idea gets put to bed like "trickle down" economics.
| jariel wrote:
| Social Networks have network externalizations.
|
| The presence of the 'freeloaders' makes the value of the
| network.
| efdee wrote:
| > Why have 1bn users and make $1 per user? Isn't it better
| if then have 200mn users and make $20 per user?
|
| In one case you make $1BN and in the other you make $4BN.
| So yes, the latter would objectively be better. :-)
| Darmody wrote:
| Not necessarily. Sometimes more users is better than
| higher revenue.
|
| If those 200 million users have to choose between paying
| you $20/year or paying only $1 and joining a network with
| 1 billion users...they'll probably choose the later. Then
| you won't see those 4 billion dollars.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| It depends on the business.
|
| If users cost $0.05 / user to support, that's very
| different than $1 / user.
|
| Software products scale... but they don't scale
| completely free.
| Darmody wrote:
| Yes, of course, but we're talking about messaging apps
| like Whatsapp.
| estaseuropano wrote:
| Indeed Viber is even worse. At least somewhat transparent
| about it but certainly not a possible destination for
| privacy focused users.
| [deleted]
| another-dave wrote:
| That may be straightforwardly true for another service --
| Maps, Email, etc. -- but the draw of a messaging platform
| is its network effect.
|
| "All the freeloaders" is half the reason that WhatsApp is
| popular: no matter who you want to contact, they likely had
| a WhatsApp account -- from your elderly mother to your
| college friends to the B&B that you're going to stay at
| abroad.
|
| If it goes from "everyone I know is on WhatsApp" to "1 in
| 20 people I know are on WhatsApp" maybe I'm less inclined
| to continue to fork over $20.
| tgragnato wrote:
| > If it goes from "everyone I know is on WhatsApp" to "1
| in 20 people I know are on WhatsApp" maybe I'm less
| inclined to continue to fork over $20.
|
| Let's be real, I don't think this is a realistic ratio of
| users lost. They made a cost benefits analysis and are
| going on with the plan.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| Yep. The second paragraph of the article:
|
| > The messaging platform laid out fresh terms in January,
| aimed at increasing business transactions on the platform.
| bserge wrote:
| I started getting messages from Indeed on Whatsapp that I never
| signed up for. It was tolerable tbh (I'm looking for work) even
| though their results were shit.
|
| One day they spammed like 20 messages in a row, so I blocked
| them. If blocking was not allowed, I would just uninstall
| Whatsapp.
| joepie91_ wrote:
| > They've now come along to start messing with the privacy to
| start selling ads. It is insane that they're able to make such
| a mess of this. Is there a word for anti-innovation?
|
| Yes, "capitalism".
|
| The problem with capitalism is that despite lofty claims about
| it spurring on innovation and such, it pretty much does the
| opposite. I don't imagine that this will be a popular comment
| on here, but alas, it is how it is.
|
| Innovation means experimentation with uncertain outcomes, but
| humans (including investors) generally dislike uncertainty in
| their lives. Those two factors combined mean that from a
| capitalist perspective, it makes a lot more sense to invest in
| a tried-and-true method with a veneer of innovation but
| predictable returns, than to truly innovate.
|
| If you truly want innovation, then what you need to do is to
| take away the personal cost of failure (including but not
| limited to financially) as much as possible - _across the
| board_. The VC startup model is often claimed to do this, but
| really it just moves the cost of failure to the investors, it
| does not eliminate it.
|
| In a capitalist socioeconomic model, where _having_ a cost of
| failure is a fundamental tenet of the ideology (it 's what
| defines the hierarchy), this sort of "anti-innovation" will
| always keep happening. It's simply the logical thing to do
| under the circumstances.
| deckard1 wrote:
| > it pretty much does the opposite. I don't imagine that this
| will be a popular comment on here
|
| Silicon Valley and HN talk the talk of innovation, but they
| back monopolists. Time and again you will see this. Peter
| Thiel argues for this in his "Competition Is For Losers"
| talk.
|
| The constant theme is this: we want innovation so far as it
| can bring about abrupt and massive growth and lead to a
| single company dominating a market. Uber, AirBnb, Facebook,
| Google, Amazon. These are all businesses backed by VC that
| are _by design_ monopolies. They create the market and own
| it. Or, like Uber and AirBnb, they overturn the old order and
| toss up a wall around it. Profit is at odds with competition.
|
| Once a business reaches a certain size, the organization no
| longer needs innovation. It's much easier to buy rather than
| build. Building requires figuring out product-market-fit and
| it's much cheaper and faster to buy a company that already
| figured that out.
|
| That's also why you can have a world-class R&D lab like Xerox
| and see all of your innovations brought to market by
| outsiders (Apple + Microsoft in the '80s). Your organization
| is not necessarily equipped to understand how to utilize the
| innovations it creates. It doesn't understand how to sell or
| market the inventions. So it doesn't.
|
| > If you truly want innovation, then what you need to do is
| to take away the personal cost of failure
|
| We already reduce financial risk with bankruptcy laws.
| Reducing risk is one thing, but if you lean too far into that
| with VC money you can end up with WeWork or Theranos. Or any
| of the 2000s dot-com. Businesses that are little more than
| inflating worthless assets for some fraudulent payoff.
|
| Reducing risk isn't the key. You need skin in the game. But
| more important, you need people with drive. People that like
| winning more than they hate losing.
| joepie91_ wrote:
| You're correct that startups are designed with the
| intention of monopolization; however, they don't do so
| through innovation. They do so through "disruption", which
| is generally just ignoring regulations and applying a
| _veneer_ of innovation to it, which is my point.
|
| > We already reduce financial risk with bankruptcy laws.
|
| This is not sufficient. Bankrupcy laws don't pay people's
| bills while they try out something new and uncertain.
|
| > Reducing risk is one thing, but if you lean too far into
| that with VC money [...]
|
| I'm arguing that VC money _isn 't_ a way to reduce risk. It
| just shifts the risk.
|
| > Reducing risk isn't the key. You need skin in the game.
| But more important, you need people with drive. People that
| like winning more than they hate losing.
|
| Sorry, but this is feel-good motivational-speaker nonsense
| with an undertone of toxic masculinity. Actual research
| into motivation shows pretty consistently that people are
| intrinsically motivated so long as their basic needs are
| met.
|
| (Which capitalism doesn't.)
| newswasboring wrote:
| > to allow external systems to connect in so that businesses
| can do business on there. The voice calls are also a disaster
|
| While I agree with privacy things with you but business on
| whatsapp doesn't have to require privacy violations. In fact my
| experience has been good overall. Restaurants have used this as
| menu replacements, which is the best feature I have seen in a
| long time. But all they require to do this is give me there
| number. Facebook had a good feature, they are ruining it
| because all they know is to make money from advertisement. Its
| a Pidgeon holed mindset.
|
| Also I don't know what you are talking about in terms of voice
| calls. I make several voicecalls on whatsapp every day for the
| past >5 years. Never had a problem with them.
| ActorNightly wrote:
| >They've now come along to start messing with the privacy to
| start selling ads
|
| Selling user data and advertising is pretty much the end goal
| of most "free" applications that suddenly pop up on the scene,
| and that end goal is set from the start (whether to monetize
| the app yourself or sell/get acquired by a company that will
| monetize it).
| polote wrote:
| The ARPU that Facebook can make is higher than the average
| price people are willing to pay to get access to whatsapp.
| That's all, dont look further
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| People aren't going to pay for simple services like WhatsApp
| in 2021. It's as simple as that.
|
| Tech people with a high degree of suspicion and high
| disposable income are the exception. Even within that group,
| most people won't put their money where their mouth is when
| given the option.
| laurex wrote:
| Marco Polo, a video messaging app that has taken a stance
| against ad-based business models and addictive design
| patterns, charges $60/year for subscription features (with
| a free version that is fully functional) and most of its
| subscribers are middle American, non-tech elites. I think
| it's wrong to say people won't pay- just that most people
| won't pay, but that doesn't mean you can't create a great
| business from those who do value your product.
| hawk_ wrote:
| Exactly, free is akin to an addictive drug that we as a
| society have a hard time weaning off of. Strong regulation
| could dig us out, don't know what else could.
| Symbiote wrote:
| How much money is it?
|
| I remember WhatsApp being PS1/year, or something like that.
| hawk_ wrote:
| yes but was that enough to cover the costs even then?
| ForHackernews wrote:
| Probably. WhatsApp famously supported over a billion
| users with <100 engineers:
| https://www.wired.com/2015/09/whatsapp-
| serves-900-million-us...
|
| Prior to Facebook acquisition, WhatsApp was a fantastic
| engineering effort. I don't know if it's now sunk down to
| normal FB standards or if they're still good.
| jlokier wrote:
| It might be enough to cover costs, but it's not enough to
| outweigh the amount Facebook can make by using everyone's
| data.
| PeterisP wrote:
| Facebook can get much more than PS1/year ARPU from
| Whatsapp being privacy-invasive, so charging a price like
| that isn't competitive. We don't have good numbers from
| Whatsapp alone, but Facebook earns more than 150 $/year
| for each US/Canada user on average; and users who are
| willing to pay for such services probably are worth more
| than average, so an adequate replacement for invasive ad
| targeting would be quite a large monthly fee.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| Lol people didn't even want to pay that much, it wouldn't
| ask for that dollar/pound until you'd used it for a year,
| and most people would ignore the message when it came up
|
| Usually it'd just keep working anyways
| [deleted]
| loceng wrote:
| "... the average price people are willing to pay to get
| access to whatsapp [because the value Facebook provides with
| its growing networks of sites still isn't adequate enough
| because Facebook isn't actually an innovative company; and
| people don't trust or like Facebook enough to pay for the
| value that privacy, trust, and genuine support would allow
| for]"
| hedora wrote:
| > _Is there a word for anti-innovation?_
|
| "Creative destruction" is often used to describe the phenomenon
| you're describing.
|
| It can also mean selling off critical components of a working
| business for more than the business is (currently) worth.
| pmlnr wrote:
| > I'm so disappointed in this. Whatsapp is a functional tool.
| It was successful since it worked.
|
| One decade ago:
|
| s/Whatapp/Skype/g
|
| s/Facebook/Microsoft/g
| 12ian34 wrote:
| well sed
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| The niche that Whatsapp filled and which brought it to
| massive adoption was not the same as Skype's. In South
| America (and Asia, too, if I understand correctly), Whatsapp
| was a way to avoid SMS charges on your mobile phone. Because
| now it is the only way many acquaintances and businesses can
| be contacted, it will remain entrenched even with this
| hostile new privacy policy.
|
| Skype, on the other hand, was about audio- or
| videoconferencing from a computer, and so it wasn't quite as
| much a part of the ordinary person's life as Whatsapp.
| jariel wrote:
| WhatsApp was free SMS in South America where it was
| expensive.
|
| Skype was cheap long distance and low-cost mobile in Europe
| where it was expensive.
|
| Both of those things were/are stupidly expensive in those
| respective locations.
|
| Skype blew up pre-smartphone explosion.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > In South America (and Asia, too, if I understand
| correctly), Whatsapp was a way to avoid SMS charges on your
| mobile phone.
|
| It was the same in the US, especially for avoiding costly
| international SMS/MMS charges. It basically allowed me to
| communicate with international family and friends, since
| they might not have been as technically inclined to deal
| with logins and spam on apps like Skype.
|
| In addition, at that time, WhatsApp was the best way to
| share contacts. It's still one of the best ways, I think,
| since you don't have to worry if the other person is iOS or
| Android.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Yes, that's true but the keyword is "international".
| Domestic, within the US, use of WhatsApp was largely
| driven by having a multinational social network. For
| people primarily communicating with others within the US,
| SMS still dominated (or iMessages) over WhatsApp.
| Whereas, outside the US, WhatsApp was used even with
| people communicating primarily with others within the
| same country.
| acheron wrote:
| > Because now it is the only way many acquaintances and
| businesses can be contacted, it will remain entrenched even
| with this hostile new privacy policy.
|
| "Will we ever end the MySpace monopoly?"
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2007/feb/08/business
| ....
| lupire wrote:
| You can find a bad take on almost any issue from the
| Guardian. That article only exists because The Guardian
| doesn't like Rupert Murdoch.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| Not comparable. MySpace was never adopted by physical
| retail businesses and the hospitality industry. Those
| didn't join social media until the Facebook era and,
| indeed, many people are complaining that while fewer
| ordinary adults are using FB, for a lot of businesses
| their FB page remains their sole internet presence.
| phone8675309 wrote:
| Skype's niche in my cohort (poor college student in North
| America the early 2000s) was calling home to relatives
| without having to use an expensive telephone calling card
| or burning cell phone minutes. It was an important part of
| my life for keeping in touch without feeding the
| extraordinarily expensive university telephone system.
|
| I moved all of my AT&T calling card spending to Skype once
| it had the ability to call telephone numbers because it was
| much less expensive to do so.
| gogopuppygogo wrote:
| I still have about $3 in legacy Skype spend available.
| Microsoft sends me nasty emails that they don't let you
| make prepaid deposits anymore that never expire. At some
| point I'll finally use these credits and I'll probably
| never use Skype again.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| > _In [country] (and [other country], too, if I understand
| correctly), [Skype] was a way to avoid [international call]
| charges_
|
| ^ That's why GP was saying they're similar
| pmlnr wrote:
| > Skype, on the other hand, was about audio- or
| videoconferencing from a computer, and so it wasn't quite
| as much a part of the ordinary person's life as Whatsapp.
|
| It was very much a part of everyday life in Hungary. "let's
| skype" as expression existed.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| Whatsapp is what people use in some countries for
| contacting a restaurant to reserve a table, contacting a
| bike shop to ask if you can bring your bike down for
| servicing, etc. It has essentially replaced the public
| telephone network. Skype was never used that universally.
| pmlnr wrote:
| > It has essentially replaced the public telephone
| network.
|
| I know. And I think it's insane and horrible.
| lupire wrote:
| Why? The "public" telephone network is still provided by
| a business. You can't host your own phone server for
| people to call.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| The public telephone network is incomparably more
| interoperable than something like WhatsApp. You cannot
| self-host it, but you can keep the exact same phone
| number while switching providers (which is even more
| flexible than email), phone manufacturers and OSes, and
| "client" (phone modem) implementations at will.
|
| No such thing is possible with WhatsApp. Various
| implementations come from the same company, do not have
| feature parity (e. g. phone calls are not supported on
| certain mobile OSes), and definitely don't allow anything
| in the way of integration with the outside world. A PSTN
| connection can be hooked up to a PBX to let you automate
| voice and all kinds of other things, while SMS can be
| synced to the computer using an app with the appropriate
| permissions. In short, PSTN is malleable, while WhatsApp
| is not.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| The old style phone companies have no one to blame but
| themselves though, because their "services" _were_ insane
| and horrible. Phone calls, SMS and data were a goldmine
| that they were all too happy to exploit for years until
| (in the EU) regulators stepped in. International calls or
| roaming outside the EU is _still_ expensive, even in
| 2021!
|
| Not to mention that unlike Whatsapp, Facebook or Skype,
| on POTS/mobile phones you don't have any option to deal
| with spammers, call ID fraudsters and other bullshit.
| staz wrote:
| or Google Talk and Hangout
| pmlnr wrote:
| Sort of. Google Talk, yes, but only the post-2006,
| federation enabled version, which was XMPP - read
| http://googletalk.blogspot.com/2006/01/xmpp-federation.html
|
| Hangouts - no. It never was as smooth as skype or google
| talk.
| dleslie wrote:
| XMPP gtalk was awesome, and killing it was foolish; my
| _entire_ gtalk contact list suddenly stopped appearing,
| and that didn't just include people in IT. Dancers,
| musicians, teachers, et al were using Adium/Pidgin to
| chat, and suddenly it didn't work.
|
| The web chat they provided was incredibly slow on mid and
| low end PCs, but most of my friends didn't even get as
| far as trying it. Google talk stopped working in Adium
| and _they didn't notice_ because they were able to talk
| via other connected services.
|
| Probably for the best, Google didn't end up the
| benevolent technocratic force for good that we hoped for
| at the time.
| pmlnr wrote:
| Fun fact: xmpp gtalk still works with 3rd party clients.
| dleslie wrote:
| Well something broke it at some point where it no longer
| worked. There's plenty of threads going back years over
| years where folks are befuddled about connectivity
| issues.
|
| And there's that Android users were coerced to use
| Hangouts, which did not have XMPP. Rather than switch to
| Hangouts, most of my friends kept using Whatsapp and
| Messenger.
|
| Ie:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/20mz48/google_
| xmp...
|
| https://www.jabawok.net/?p=70
| Chris2048 wrote:
| Does Telegram not work?
|
| I disagree that WA is mainly popular due to functionality. Yes,
| it works, but it was mainly network effect (much like FB).
| hansel_der wrote:
| telegram works fine.
|
| can even use it from pc/tablet if i misplaced my phone ;)
| swiley wrote:
| > Whatsapp is a functional tool. It was successful since it
| worked.
|
| No! Whatsapp is a service! Lots of people have been warning you
| that this is what happens when you get tools and services
| confused. I had warned people on here about this _exact_ thing
| happening years ago when everyone thought it was the new
| hotness. People on this board were telling me I 'm being overly
| cautious but _this happens almost every time._ Stop tying your
| identity and data to services if you 're not 100% ok with them
| completely screwing you over!
|
| Jabber has OMEMO and we have deltachat and autocrypt for email
| now. There is no reason to ever do this!
| throwaway123x2 wrote:
| Whatsapp voice calls are pretty much the only way I can
| communicate with foreign family. Actually even locally,
| sometimes whatsapp calls are much better over wifi than cell
| calls over towers, it's kind of ridiculous. I don't even bother
| calling frequent contacts over cell any more.
| hansel_der wrote:
| huh. your cell network must be pretty bad.
|
| i recall only one time where whatsapp voice was ok-ish
| (better then regular cellphone) quality but the lag totally
| killed the conversation. when someone calls me via xy-voice i
| usually deny it and call them back via cell. it became a meme
| that only cheapos do this some time ago.
|
| international might be different as quality and lag issues
| are more prevalent and money is usually what keeps the
| conversation short.
| throwaway123x2 wrote:
| I'm on an AT&T MVNO in a big US city so I don't think so.
| VoIP is 9/10 times better than copper for me. Sometimes
| whatsapp does get weirdly laggy and I have to switch back
| to cell, but the drop in audio quality is noticeable.
| levosmetalo wrote:
| Only after switching my family to Signal, I noticed how much
| better international voice and video call over Signal than
| over Whatsapp.
|
| With Whatsapp I would often get lag, echo and generally poor
| voice quality, with Signal it just works perfectly, even
| better than regular phone calls.
|
| Give it a try and check if it's worth it for you.
| throwaway123x2 wrote:
| We do get lag on whatsapp every so often. I'll give signal
| a shot, thanks!
| leephillips wrote:
| I agree with you completely, but "Most of us paid some money
| for the app": I didn't know it was possible to pay for
| WhatsApp. On what platforms does it cost money?
| celticninja wrote:
| the app was 99p when i first downloaded it I think.
| OnlyLys wrote:
| I used to pay for a WhatsApp subscription. I remember it
| being a small amount per year. But they did it away with it
| after Facebook bought them.
| sefrost wrote:
| Did it ever actually charge anyone? I remember agreeing to
| something like $1 per year but never being charged.
| OnlyLys wrote:
| Now that you mention it, I do remember being given free
| extensions to the WhatsApp service. But at some point I
| recall the extension had run out and I had to pay for it.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| It was $1 / year
| pmontra wrote:
| The app on Android has always been free. Sometimes it asked 1
| Euro to keep working. I always ignored it. I should also have
| had to setup payment on Google Play as I never bought an app
| or anything there. I remember that it stopped working for a
| few days at least once but Whatsapp was not as important as
| it is now. I waited and it welcomed me back again. Did I see
| their bluff?
|
| If they'd start asking for money now there will be a mass
| migration to any other free service. We did it many times
| with instant messengers on PCs in the 90s and the early
| 2000s. People ponders about $10 vs $9 but they take no time
| moving from $1 to free.
| vl wrote:
| On iPhone it was $1, since it was easy to take the money. On
| Android, where most users didn't have payment setup, it was
| free with the promise to eventually charge $1 in the future,
| which they never did. Then Facebook bought them for $19B.
| PetitPrince wrote:
| Initially WhatsApp (before Facebook acquisition) had a
| (cheap!) one time fee.
| leephillips wrote:
| Oh, I guess I was late to the party.
| vxNsr wrote:
| And then it was an annual fee, of $1 billed to your cell
| service provider, people had a much easier time parting
| with $1 at some future point on their cellphone bill which
| anyways is dynamic vs $1 now in the app. for the team size
| the projected amount they'd make was fine.
|
| iirc it had like 500mil users and less than 50 ppl in the
| company.
| RobertoG wrote:
| I think that was only true for the Apple store, not for
| Android.
| [deleted]
| musha68k wrote:
| This interview with Jason Calacanis puts Facebook's acquisition
| of Whatsapp into better perspective:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2bYwYxqJCM&t=2698s
| korijn wrote:
| Honestly, as an engineer, looking at the way FAANG are becoming
| middle-men in just about every part of human life, I would rather
| ban all social media and more generally mass communication
| software outright than try and regulate it. It feels to me like
| it's gotten to the point where this type of software is doing
| more harm than good.
|
| I know that the software itself is not the issue, the tech has
| potential to do good, but as humans we are just better off
| without it, if you ask me.
|
| PS. Not looking to argue. Just wanted to vent.
| TheJoYo wrote:
| A $5 VSP server hosts all the social networking I need and it's
| owned and controlled by me.
|
| I think people overestimate the value that Facebook gives them
| because of the social graph it holds ransom.
| pmlnr wrote:
| I blame smartphones, the hardware. Without them, social media,
| the software would be MUCH less invasive.
| korijn wrote:
| It does certainly amplify the power of "user engagement
| optimization".
| londons_explore wrote:
| I really don't understand facebook's approach to this change...
|
| Whatsapp is part of facebook, the most data driven of companies.
| Surely they wrote 10 variations on the 'please accept the new
| T&C's' screen, and did A/B testing on each, user studies, etc.
| And they wouldn't have deployed if there was any risk to their
| business...
|
| Yet it seems the users hate it enough that there _is_ a risk to
| their business... So what went wrong?
| Bakary wrote:
| They saw the number of users who actually migrated, and how the
| negative media reaction dissipated quickly, and realized that
| it was barely a blip on their radar. They have years of
| experience introducing changes and waiting out the scandal
| period. They know they can do anything without much in the way
| of consequences.
| Icathian wrote:
| My assumption is that the cost/benefit math means that this is
| still worth it for them to do. Put as much lipstick as you can
| on that pig and go to market with it is not an internally
| inconsistent or illogical path. Even if it sucks for us as
| consumers.
| londons_explore wrote:
| But look at the message presented to users [1]. It is almost
| threatening... The deadline date at the bottom... The scary
| sounding phrase "partner with Facebook" without even giving
| an example...
|
| The simple text in bold at the top saying "Facebook never
| gets the contents of your messages to friends, and it never
| will" would have gone a long way to making most users happy.
|
| It's almost as if someone deliberately chose the text of this
| to make users upset...
|
| [1]:
| https://images.indianexpress.com/2021/01/WhatsApp_NEW_1.jpg
| throwaway556179 wrote:
| Sometimes, I wish someone would hack into the FB C-Levels homes
| and live-stream their lives to the world - like everything they
| say and do, just to make the world a bit more open, connected and
| transparent.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| How is that in any way similar to the proposed WhatsApp
| changes?
| throwaway556179 wrote:
| It concerns the generic "information asymmetry" - we want
| your relations, dreams, illnesses, loves, pulse, voice,
| basically anything we can get - but let silence be the only
| thing you will know about us.
| uniqueid wrote:
| A photographer claims he was accused of breaching privacy
| by Facebook after taking photos of Mark Zuckerberg
| cleaning up his dog's poo.
|
| https://metro.co.uk/2018/04/03/pictures-mark-zuckerberg-didn...
| gilrain wrote:
| They should have promoted the photos instead; that's the most
| humanizing photo of Zuck I've ever seen. He's upgraded from
| "I hate everything about him" to "I hate everything about him
| except that he cleans up after his dog responsibly."
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| I use Signal and I've encouraged my friends and family to switch
| as well.
|
| But let's be honest: WhatsApp is moving forward because they
| aren't threatened by this concern or losing some users to Signal.
| The average user doesn't care about anything other than easily
| communicating with other people at this point, and news articles
| like this are part of the problem.
|
| Frankly, the sky-is-falling uproar about any and every privacy
| policy change from free services had burned people out and made
| them jaded. Tech media likes to portray every change as an
| egregious violation of personal privacy, yet most of this stuff
| is just mundane as targeting where the data never leaves the
| company.
|
| The media has become the boy who cried wolf with their attempts
| to present every type of data collection as bad. This article
| doesn't even attempt to explain what the privacy policy changes
| are or what it might mean. It just implies that the reader should
| be angry.
|
| In 2021, everyone has heard the "if you're not paying for it,
| you're the product" line so many times that they've just accepted
| it and moved on with their lives. The media's false equivalencies
| are simply accelerating it.
| lokischild wrote:
| You seem to make many assumptions that are, AFAIK, false. The
| data is there and gets stored indefinitely. It is not only
| monetized for ADs, but for surveillance as well. Companies and
| state contact the company and buy that data about you.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Do you have a source for that? Because your claims don't
| match the proposed WhatsApp privacy policy changes this
| refers to.
|
| You can read a summary of the proposed changes here:
| https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstechnica.com/tech-
| policy/202...
|
| Contrary to the public perception, Facebook isn't in the
| business of selling data to other companies. The proposed
| changes don't change that situation.
|
| A privacy policy isn't going to stop the state from legally
| accessing data they're legally entitled to.
|
| This is what I was trying to say with my comment above: The
| public perception of what these companies are doing has
| diverged from what they're actually doing, and it's making
| everyone so jaded that they've stopped paying attention to
| the details.
| adam12 wrote:
| Is this a sign that Facebook is having revenue issues?
|
| Why would a company risk the negative press and losing users to
| other apps like Signal if everything was going fine.
|
| Is it possible that the government is strong-arming them?
| saddlerustle wrote:
| It's absurd this article doesn't try to describe _what the
| changes actually are_. The privacy policy change doesn 't
| functionally change anything about what data is collected or
| shared with Facebook. Metadata collection for ad targeting has
| been allowed by the privacy policy since 2016.
| pedrocr wrote:
| The article is a short piece that basically says "Remember that
| kerfuffle about Whatsapp TOS that lead Facebook to put it on
| hold? It's back on". For that purpose the paragraph it does
| include describing the kinds of changes at stake should be
| enough. It's not an in-depth piece explaining the nature of the
| changes and in which cases they are indeed just
| "clarifications" as Facebook claims.
| pera wrote:
| In 2016 WhatsApp let users opt-out of Facebook data sharing
| with third parties by just checking a box in Account Settings
| [1]. Most of my friends and family did opt-out. Now, as far as
| I understand, they are being "forced to opt-in" by accepting
| the new ToS and Privacy Policy or, otherwise, getting locked
| out.
|
| 1 - https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/25/whatsapp-to-share-user-
| dat...
| saddlerustle wrote:
| That's not true. There is no change for users who opted out
| in 2016
| conradev wrote:
| No, that is entirely incorrect:
|
| > When WhatsApp launched a major update to its privacy policy
| in August 2016, it started sharing user information and
| metadata with Facebook. At that time, the messaging service
| offered its billion existing users 30 days to opt out of at
| least some of the sharing. If you chose to opt out at the
| time, WhatsApp will continue to honor that choice. The
| feature is long gone from the app settings, but you can check
| whether you're opted out through the "Request account info"
| function in Settings.
|
| https://www.wired.com/story/whatsapp-facebook-data-share-
| not...
| pera wrote:
| > WhatsApp will continue to honor that choice.
|
| That's good news but I can't find this stated anywhere in
| their policy:
|
| https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/updates/privacy-
| policy/?lang=...
|
| It seems like an important thing to mention.
| drummer wrote:
| After all the Facebook scandals you really trust them to
| honor that choice?
| capableweb wrote:
| I think we're long past the idea that general, global news
| producers are trying to stay factual and provide information to
| their readers. It's all about generating outrage as it's much
| easier to get people hooked on outrage than the boring truth
| and impartial reporting.
| majke wrote:
| More than that.
|
| (1) The policy differs per country. But how is it different in
| practice between the EU and USA and Brasil? It's not public
| knowledge.
|
| (2) It's absurd the policy doesn't describe anything useful. I
| tried to find if the contact book is being sent to facebook and
| if so, for how long. The wording is so opaque it's impossible
| to figure out.
|
| https://twitter.com/majek04/status/1348574409968275456
| yuriko_boyko wrote:
| The contacts have been shared since 2016. You can get your
| account info in the Account option, but they make it a pain
| to get it. Mine took 3 days for an HTML page.
| majke wrote:
| I did that. It doesn't answer the question - is my contact
| book on facebook servers? If so, how it is processed and
| for how long.
| smashah wrote:
| Too big to fail. WhatsApp should be transferred to something like
| the UN. It is no longer a cool startup/app. It is the main
| communication infrastructure for the majority of the planet. Yet
| it's in the hand of unblinking cyborgs.
| sneak wrote:
| > _It is the main communication infrastructure for the majority
| of the planet._
|
| The majority of the planet doesn't use the internet.
|
| Only a slight majority of the planet even has the option to use
| the internet.
| smashah wrote:
| Sorry if I wasn't clear. I was speaking about human beings,
| not the planet in a celestial/natural sense. Hope that makes
| sense.
| sneak wrote:
| So was I. Only a very slight majority of human beings have
| an option to access the internet, and a majority of human
| beings do not use the internet at all.
| smashah wrote:
| Ah I see where the confusion lies. In this thread we are
| discussing a smartphone application that requires an
| internet connection - I extend those
| prerequisites/qualifiers to the word "planet".
| [deleted]
| hansel_der wrote:
| > It is the main communication infrastructure for the majority
| of the planet.
|
| sure? afaik whatsapp is "only" domniant in five-eyes, europe
| and latin-america but thats not where the majority of ppl live.
| smashah wrote:
| What is five eyes?
|
| I think the bounds of your knowledge are deceiving you as to
| the extent to which WhatsApp is used all over the world.
|
| It is the dominant communication app in the entirety of the
| middle east, Africa and Asia (not including China) also.
| pmlnr wrote:
| > for the majority of the planet
|
| WeChat would like to have a word.
| ylyn wrote:
| Who uses WeChat outside of PRC and aside from overseas PRC?
| ElectricMind wrote:
| Once you have monopoly then you can pretty much do anything, in
| America. No moral dilemma.
| jlengrand wrote:
| Temporize the backlash, gather the data from the disruption, take
| final decision. I take it not so many folks moved off in the end?
| bitcharmer wrote:
| That's fine, all my family and friends already moved to Signal.
| londons_explore wrote:
| As I understand it, the actual T&C change is pretty minor (the
| ability for Facebook to have the contents of your messages on
| their server _only_ in the case you are talking to a business
| which uses Facebook for commercial messaging)
|
| Since this change seems pretty minor, why can't Whatsapp cancel
| the T&C changes, make a big announcement that they have caved to
| user demands, and then get some third party to host their
| commercial messaging efforts? Said third party could get
| permission to handle user data the way every other 'use chat for
| customer service' company does...
| saurik wrote:
| Or why the hell can't all the "omg the sky is falling and
| Facebook is so horrible" people on this thread just understand
| any of the numerous places this has been explained and not make
| out like something of actual interest about the protocol or
| even the client has changed? The shear amount of misinformation
| being spread about this topic on Hacker News is ridiculously
| disappointing and entirely unbefitting of its supposedly
| enlightened audience, and the number of people I--as an actual
| privacy and security researcher--have had to talk _out_ of
| switching from WhatsApp to something _actually bad for their
| use cases_ due to all of this anti-WhatsApp FUD is insane.
| ulzeraj wrote:
| I would be interested in non creepy or elitist ways to convince
| your colleagues to migrate to another platform. People who do not
| care about privacy and all.
|
| I thought I was free from Whatsuck but then I've changed jobs and
| the only way that I can keep in touch with my remote team outside
| of the corporate communicators which are separated by a 2FA
| Citrix Workspace login is through WhatsApp. So WhatsApp is like a
| lifeline where you can send a message stating that you've dropped
| from the Teams meeting because your power went down or your
| computer crashed.
| kevincox wrote:
| I asked a small number of people close to me to switch to
| Matrix. For everyone else I am briding to other services. This
| means that I may not have access to every feature on the remote
| service (depends on the completeness of the bridge mostly) but
| now I only really need to check one service for all of my day-
| to-day chats.
|
| So now anyone that joins Matrix can find me, I can do most of
| my communication in the same environment and if people ask I
| can explain the benefits of switching to Matrix.
|
| It is by no means perfect, but I find it much more convenient
| than using 5 different apps and I didn't have to convince
| everyone that I regularly communicate to switch to get major
| benefits.
|
| TL;DR Matrix allows a slow-and-steady migration which seems
| like the best option available.
| wtf_is_up wrote:
| It sounds like WhatsApp is providing considerable value to your
| team.
| 7v3x3n3sem9vv wrote:
| You forgot the post-install step of asking everyone for their
| username/ID. It may sound stupid, but this is a huge barrier to
| entry for a lot of people. It's hard to build a network when you
| need to ask everyone 1. If they're on a service 2. What their ID
| is.
|
| With Signal, friends and family just have to install it and, bam,
| I'm already in their contact list, along with any new person who
| joins.
| blackrock wrote:
| Ugh. Facebook Messenger is an abomination. Your chats are in
| clear text, and Facebook mines it for advertisement to you.
| pmlnr wrote:
| The funny thing is: they are now forced to highlight the
| differences between business and "private" chats, especially that
| business chat contents are _not_ private.
| supernova87a wrote:
| Why anyone surprised? Facebook DGAF.
| popol12 wrote:
| Meanwhile I've switched my family and friend to Signal with great
| success.
| hliyan wrote:
| Same here, even less technically inclined ones. Whenever
| someone messages me on WhatsApp, I usually reply with, "Hey,
| would you mind if we switch to Signal <install link>? I'm in
| the process of getting off WhatsApp for obvious reasons". At
| that point, either they install and continue to conversation in
| Signal, or they reply back asking "Wha? What's wrong with
| WhatsApp?" at which point, I explain just how much FB's clients
| can know about you with the metadata they collect.
| amenod wrote:
| I installed Signal recently, but was flabbergasted when it
| advised me to connect with someone they _found in my phone
| contacts_ who has recently joined Signal. WTF? If I knew that
| my contacts were being shared with a 3rd party (Signal), I
| would never have signed up.
|
| Still, better Signal than Facebook, I guess. :-/
|
| P.S.: if I'm missing something and the check was done in
| privacy-conscious way, I would love to be corrected.
| tchalla wrote:
| > If I knew that my contacts were being shared with a 3rd
| party (Signal), I would never have signed up.
|
| I think, you should read up a bit on how Signal manages
| contacts/address books.
|
| https://signal.org/blog/private-contact-discovery/
| bennyp101 wrote:
| I don't think they are shared in the same sense that it is
| shared with WhatsApp/Facebook etc.
|
| "Signal periodically sends truncated cryptographically hashed
| phone numbers for contact discovery. Names are never
| transmitted, and the information is not stored on the
| servers. The server responds with the contacts that are
| Signal users and then immediately discards this information.
| Your phone now knows which of your contacts is a Signal user
| and notifies you if your contact just started using Signal. "
|
| https://support.signal.org/hc/en-
| us/articles/360007061452-Do...
| sneak wrote:
| The problem is that phone numbers are a small space for
| brute force, and depending on how much they truncate, this
| could be very close to uploading one's address book.
| kevincox wrote:
| Yup. Hashing phone numbers is basically useless. If they
| truncate enough there might be plausible deniability due
| to possible collisions but I suspect the chance of
| collision is still quite low as they don't want to annoy
| people with false positives.
| sneak wrote:
| False positives would be sent to the device for local
| comparison against full hashes; it wouldn't "annoy
| people" because it would not trigger a match unless the
| full hash matched on device.
|
| There is indeed a way to truncate enough to balance the
| amount of data sent to the device vs privacy.
| kevincox wrote:
| Good point, that would definitely preserve some privacy.
|
| I missed that option (basically now the Google Safe
| Browsing API works) and the Signal page isn't clear that
| this is how it works.
| draugadrotten wrote:
| https://support.signal.org/hc/en-
| us/articles/360007061452-Do...
|
| "Signal periodically sends truncated cryptographically hashed
| phone numbers for contact discovery. Names are never
| transmitted, and the information is not stored on the
| servers. The server responds with the contacts that are
| Signal users and then immediately discards this information.
| Your phone now knows which of your contacts is a Signal user
| and notifies you if your contact just started using Signal. "
| [deleted]
| chopin wrote:
| It's done via hashes which is why it might need some time
| that contacts on your phone are recognized that they are on
| Signal.
|
| Afaik, Signal servers have no information who your contacts
| are.
| [deleted]
| decrypt wrote:
| Are they actively using Signal though? I am struggling with
| mine, where conversations still happen on WhatsApp.
| ameesdotme wrote:
| I found the most easy way to motivate people to switch, is to
| just remove your WhatsApp profile-picture and set your status
| to something like "Find me on Signal".
|
| The amount of people reaching out via WhatsApp lowered
| drastically, all (but one) of my main contacts are now also
| on Signal.
| pmlnr wrote:
| I've been trying to find a solution to bridge rooms across
| chats to make the change simpler for anyone, and
| matterbridge[^1] does a lovely job - except for Signal.
|
| Moxie made it stupidly hard to connect to Signal with anything
| that's not the official app, which is definitely a hostile act
| towards anyone who doesn't want to have the Signal app on their
| phone - the Signal desktop software needs the mobile app to
| work:
|
| "To use the Signal desktop app, Signal must first be installed
| on your phone."
|
| https://signal.org/download/
|
| I definitely have my issues with Signal. That said, it's
| simple, and works reasonably well, it's just not a nice system
| at all from the dev/libre perspective.
|
| [^1]: https://github.com/42wim/matterbridge/
| jatins wrote:
| the audio/video calling on Signal seems pretty unreliable.
| Other than that it's been a smooth move.
| ZeroCool2u wrote:
| From what I remember reading a while back, Signal uses a
| couple constant bitrates (Basically just high or low I think)
| to remove even more metadata about your calls and prevent
| metadata fingerprinting. It's a performance/privacy tradeoff,
| but it goes to show just how seriously they incorporate
| cryptographic security into the apps design.
| VMG wrote:
| Do you still have Whatsapp installed?
|
| I have seen family and friends _add_ Signal but few actually
| _removing_ Whatsapp from their phone. Which is not a success.
| samizdis wrote:
| > Which is not a success.
|
| That depends on your aims. I announced to family/friends that
| I was deleting WhatsApp and asked them to install Signal, and
| they have done, and message me via that.
|
| My aim was to ensure that I could still converse, but not
| have to use a service with which I had become disenchanted.
| It isn't my business whether they continue to use WhatsApp or
| whether they delete it.
| another-dave wrote:
| I don't think it's possible for most people to make this a
| one-pass activity without it causing a lot of friction for
| them, but over time you can build a critical mass of your
| social circle on non-FB platforms that allow you to _then_
| delete WhatsApp with less friction.
|
| Step 1 for family & friends is being available on multiple
| platforms, because that in turn gives _their_ circle less
| tie-in to WhatsApp. It's only when their circle also make
| themselves available that they would have a painless option
| to remove WhatsApp, but IMO, that's OK.
|
| It is a success, but playing the long game.
| aarchi wrote:
| The WhatsApp fiasco has been great because Signal is now
| widely-known and I haven't needed WhatsApp anymore for
| international calls.
| sumanthvepa wrote:
| I've done that too. But for some reason, my business
| communication still happens on WhatsApp. Until that happens
| Facebook is safe.
| buro9 wrote:
| that is the one I found easiest to move.
|
| Business is already conducted well on email, and if it needs
| sync chat for larger orgs then Slack steps in, and if it
| needs personal private sync chat then Signal steps in.
| base wrote:
| The issue a lot times is clients, for example if you work
| with small business.
| hiq wrote:
| You're saying that email, text messages and phone calls
| don't work as well as WhatsApp for small businesses? I
| wouldn't have expected that, so I'm curious if you have
| examples to share.
| [deleted]
| lnl wrote:
| The relevant blog post, that the article doesn't link to:
|
| https://blog.whatsapp.com/more-information-about-our-update
|
| Goes into slightly more detail then the article, and also takes
| obvious jabs at Telegram and Signal.
| kar1181 wrote:
| I think as a starter concerned (UK) citizens should write to
| their MP.
|
| I wrote when the first news broke and got a pretty prompt reply
| it was being looked at. Then Facebook announced it's pause and
| the issue went silent.
|
| Now it's rearing up again we need to likewise make sure it's on
| the radar of our MPs.
| KDJohnBrown wrote:
| People have been raising the alarm about governmenral big
| brotherism for aeons .. and we willingly accept 24/7 surveillance
| by big tech.
|
| The internet was by far the worst infringement on freedon
| humanity ever created. The worst part is we all submit to this
| willingly, without so much as raising a fist in defense.
| exabrial wrote:
| Here you go! https://signal.org/donate/
| [deleted]
| yalogin wrote:
| Reality is no one cares about privacy, there isn't a dollar
| amount attached to it like with security. So yes people will be
| outraged when they are told data is collected about them but then
| they will see the service offered and accept the collection. The
| only thing this achieved is made a lot of people realize and
| vocalize to themselves that they don't care about privacy. I
| could t even convince my own family to ditch WhatsApp.
|
| We are in the very early phase of the fight for privacy like we
| were in the ssl 1.0 days with security. It will happen but there
| is a lot of struggle left
| CubsFan1060 wrote:
| People care, but they are also unwilling to make any sacrifice.
| They would like more privacy, but would also like to continue
| using the services that steal their privacy. And they would
| also like to continue to use the for free.
|
| When faced with "continue using the thing I like and lose
| privacy" vs "Pay for a similar solution", they almost always
| choose the first.
| MaxBarraclough wrote:
| That isn't a problem here. Signal is free, and already well
| funded.
| MaxBarraclough wrote:
| > Reality is no one cares about privacy
|
| Not so. I know several non-technical people who heard about the
| changes and made the switch to Signal. (Or rather, primarily
| Signal, but WhatsApp where necessary.) It's not just us
| HackerNews readers.
|
| I don't expect WhatsApp to be a deserted wasteland any time
| soon, but it's not the case that no one cares.
|
| > there isn't a dollar amount attached to it like with security
|
| There isn't really a bright line between the two. Privacy has
| significant overlap with the _C_ of the _CIA_ triad of
| cybersecurity.
|
| > I could t even convince my own family to ditch WhatsApp.
|
| That's unfortunate, but not universal.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| Well of course they are
| cybert00th wrote:
| "We've also included more information to try and address concerns
| we're hearing," - yeah, pull the other leg, it has bells on...
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