[HN Gopher] WhatsApp Reveals What Happens to Users Who Don't Agr...
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WhatsApp Reveals What Happens to Users Who Don't Agree to Privacy
Policy Changes
Author : Tomte
Score : 64 points
Date : 2021-02-21 18:00 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.macrumors.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.macrumors.com)
| StavrosK wrote:
| > the changes at the time were interpreted by many users to mean
| that the platform would share their messages with parent company
| Facebook.
|
| > The misperception caused a backlash amongst users of the
| Facebook-owned platform, causing an exodus to rival messaging
| apps like Telegram and Signal
|
| There was no misperception, we all moved because of what Facebook
| is doing, not because of what we thought they are doing but
| aren't.
| sneak wrote:
| How nice, you'll still be able to receive messages, but not
| reply.
|
| I hope this puts a real taste of the censorship these platforms
| arbitrarily wield into the mouths of millions of people.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| don't forget - as long you are being harmed by a private
| corporation and not a government - it's A-ok!
| HenryBemis wrote:
| You cannot escape an evil government.
|
| But if you don't like the services of a private corporation,
| just drop it. Nobody is forcing anyone to use WhatsApp.
| Pleople decide to do so. We are all free, and I believe we
| can all affort a (very) few euros/dollars/pounds and buy
| Threema. Or using Signal for free.
|
| But if your government decides to bump VAT on food at 60%,
| you cannot escape that. Only leave the country.
| corobo wrote:
| Nobody's forcing you to use whatsapp other than a little
| global pandemic forcing all interactions online aye
|
| Now's not the time to cut yourself off from your support
| network and Facebook knows it. Gross.
| andrewclunn wrote:
| a country has boundaries, but multinationals know no
| borders.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| Whatsapp has basically replaced the public telephone
| network in some countries. It is the only way that many
| businesses can be contacted; they won't respond to normal
| phone calls or SMS, and they don't maintain a website or
| Facebook page. Even some government offices will insist on
| being contacted via Whatsapp. So, even if you bought
| Threema or used Signal, you would still be quite isolated
| from the society around you.
|
| Once a product development by a private company becomes
| essentially necessary public infrastructure, obviously
| there are concerns.
| MikeUt wrote:
| If these private corporations decide to censor some
| message, an individual "just dropping" them won't help them
| spread the message one bit.
| lucb1e wrote:
| That's not censorship, that's generous. If you don't agree with
| the Google terms of service, it's not as if you can make use of
| their services. Facebook apparently allows people to still have
| WhatsApp, run the software, connect to the servers, and receive
| messages. Presumably to make other people talk to those users,
| making them want to reply, and then sell their soul after all,
| rather than haunting those users off the platform altogether.
| It's clever and insidious.
| sneak wrote:
| Whether or not is it generous doesn't change the fact that is
| is censorship.
| lucb1e wrote:
| To censor: "to examine in order to suppress (see suppress
| sense 2) or delete anything considered objectionable"
| (Merriam Webster).
|
| That's not what this is. Nobody is reading messages or
| selectively withholding them. They're denying access to
| certain parts of the service for people that don't want to
| agree to the service's contract (I said, mostly jokingly,
| that this is "generous" because most other services just
| stop working altogether if you don't agree; I obviously
| don't think Facebook is the benevolent party here, as the
| rest of my previous comment made clear).
|
| Whether that contract Facebook offers is reasonable and
| just, or whether perhaps we can consider WhatsApp public
| infrastructure due to its ubiquity and importance in
| certain countries, is a separate discussion.
|
| The new contract may not be fair to require because people
| often don't really have a choice to move away, but for it
| to be censorship there has to be more than "we can't
| provide you a service because you didn't agree to our
| contract under which we provide it". If I don't agree that
| Deutsche Post sells my metadata to third parties, it's not
| suddenly censorship if Deutsche Post refuses to then
| deliver my letters. They're not censoring my letters,
| they're telling me to go and find another delivery service
| or deliver my own damn letters.
|
| Which, to get back to the point, you can do on
| https://matrix.org.
| sneak wrote:
| > _Nobody is reading messages or selectively withholding
| them_
|
| Facebook is selectively withholding messages sent by
| users who haven't agreed that Facebook should get to
| arbitrarily and unilaterally change contract terms at any
| time.
| grawprog wrote:
| Well how else could they tease you into eventually accepting
| the terms? You get that little dopamine hit from a
| notification, but can't deal with it until you accept their
| terms.
|
| It's fairly insidious.
| geewee wrote:
| That's an oddly biased article: "The misperception.." ... "rival
| messaging apps like Telegram and Signal, both of which were quick
| to exploit the situation"
|
| I think being skeptical of these anti-privacy moves is perfectly
| reasonable, and I think saying Signal and Telegram is "exploiting
| the situation" is misleading at best and disingenuous at worst.
| [deleted]
| throwawayboise wrote:
| "To exploit" can mean "to make the best use of" it does not
| have to imply any ethical question.
| klelatti wrote:
| Facebook seemingly has no qualms about removing services which
| may be immensely valuable to individuals but which don't generate
| cash for Facebook.
|
| It happens here to individuals and it's now happening at country
| level. Can't help but feel that Zuckerberg and Sandberg are
| playing with fire here.
| zamadatix wrote:
| Companies don't general form to create value for individuals
| with the expectation they get nothing out of that work.
| Certainly not to the point for it to be considered playing with
| fire for a business to stop doing something that isn't
| profitable.
|
| Facebook is not your friend and you are not Facebook's friend.
| klelatti wrote:
| No business operates in a vacuum - there are countless
| examples where firms have to continue to provide services to
| unprofitable customers in some locations for public policy
| reasons - banking and telecoms probably throw up hundreds of
| examples.
|
| Facebook may not be regulated as a utility now but they are
| giving lots of reasons why more regulation would be
| justified.
| TrianguloY wrote:
| So, if you chat with a business, Facebook will know details about
| the business, and maybe the chat. That's the real value Facebook
| gives business to use WhatsApp.
|
| If you only chat with private numbers, WhatsApp will operate
| exactly as it was before the privacy policy changes, Facebook
| will know nothing about you.
|
| Is this correct?
| NanoWar wrote:
| TheY can sell metadata from private chats (maybe like a
| profile) to said businesses...
| TrianguloY wrote:
| Can they? And which metadata?
|
| In any case, that's assuming you talk with a business. So if
| you don't, will they sell that metadata too?
|
| If you talk with a business, lets say a bakery, Facebook will
| know you talked with that bakery, and if you talk with a
| different business that other business may know it too.
| That's metadata about you that they explicitly say they
| collect.
|
| But if you never talked with a business...what will Facebook
| know?
| klelatti wrote:
| If I'm a business why would I allow Facebook to use data from
| chats with my customers to help them identify (eg) the most
| profitable ones and potentially make that identification
| available to competitors?
| saurik wrote:
| If you don't want to do that you don't have to, as far as I
| understand; you can instead use the WhatsApp Business API
| client--which you would have to host yourself, coming up with
| your own mechanism for sharing access to it within your
| organization, and handling your own security and durability
| measures for the keys involved--rather than using the Facebook
| hosted client feature they want to role out for the large
| number of businesses that probably don't want to deal with all
| of that.
|
| https://developers.facebook.com/docs/whatsapp/getting-starte...
| anotherhue wrote:
| Let us not forget, that this is an app, and we can replace it at
| will.
|
| If only more of the world's problems were so easily fixed.
| klelatti wrote:
| I'm a member of a WhatsApp group of families who have family
| members in a particular care home. It's an important means of
| exchanging information.
|
| Can I persuade them all to move to Signal / Telegram? No.
|
| Not so easily fixed.
| dgellow wrote:
| > According to an email seen by TechCrunch to one of its merchant
| partners, WhatsApp said it will "slowly ask" users who have not
| yet accepted the policy changes to comply with the new terms over
| the coming weeks, "in order to have full functionality of
| WhatsApp" starting May 15.
|
| > If they still don't accept the terms, "for a short time, these
| users will be able to receive calls and notifications, but will
| not be able to read or send messages from the app," the company
| added in the note.
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(page generated 2021-02-21 23:02 UTC)