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Ask HN: How would you convince your friends and family to switch from WhatsApp?

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Re: Ask HN: How would you convince your friends and family to switch from WhatsApp?

#101

Post by andreygrehov »

bitcharmer wrote: post #90
andreygrehov wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they explicitly say it? If yes, how do they use this information? Any phone uploads your photos to a cloud these days.

> how do they use this information? I don't know. Do you? The terms and conditions say they do it for "operating and providing our Services". It's vague on purpose. And it's not only FB, it's their "business partners" (read it as: whoever pays us) too. "As part of the Facebook family of companies, WhatsApp receives information from, and shares information with, this family of companies. We may use the information we…

So, I took a look. You said that they share the contests of your messages. Looks like that's simply wrong.

Messsages

"We do not retain your messages in the ordinary course of providing our Services to you. Instead, your messages are stored on your device and not typically stored on our servers. Once your messages are delivered, they are deleted from our servers."

Photos

"When a user forwards media within a message, we store that media temporarily in encrypted form on our servers"

Automatically Collected Information

Usage And Log Information, Device And Connection Information, Location Information and Cookies.

What am I missing? What exactly is WhatsApp doing wrong? Once again, I hate shady shit, but I'm not seeing anything crazy in here.

Re: Ask HN: How would you convince your friends and family to switch from WhatsApp?

#102

Post by davidhyde »

I’ve changed my profile photo to a photo of Signal next to its logo along with a short message asking people to contact me on that medium. That way Facebook gets dirty data (an incorrect profile photo). I recon that people pay more attention to profile photos than status messages too.

Then to win whatever argument they fire at me I reply with something like “Thanks for your insight Dave but I’m not asking you to quit WhatsApp. I’m just asking you to use Signal for our group chat and to keep in touch with me. You are welcome to use WhatsApp to keep in touch with others. I’ve done my research, I know what they are doing at a technical level and have decided to stop using WhatsApp.” A statement like this opens up very few avenues for argument because you are not directly accusing the other person of being ignorant. So they will not usually feel the need to defend themselves. You are merely informing them of your preference. They may feel the need to remind you of their argument and the best way to reply to that is to paraphrase their argument accurately even if you don’t agree with it. I know it’s mean and manipulative but arguing about privacy is just a waste of time IMO. Some people get it, some just don’t. Leave it be.

Re: Ask HN: How would you convince your friends and family to switch from WhatsApp?

#103

Post by lotsofpulp »

novaRom wrote: post #67
millibar wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, sounds like an impossible situation to get our of over there. also sounds like facebook have essentially monopolised messaging services in Mexio. I also read something similar about Brazil too.

Same in Italy. It's really crazy how much control FB has in many different countries.

It's really amazing to me that the killer features of WhatsApp - no spam and no usernames/passwords to keep track of or get hacked - were made possible by simple SMS authentication. The whole lack of spam via SMS authentication itself and using the phone system as a proxy for real humans is something that sounds so simple now yet eluded people for the longest time. Maybe it was because SMS messages used to cost something for many years, at least in the US.

It really elevated the app to something else when we were in a sea of spam and dealing with old people who forget their login names and passwords who didn't like having to login.

And FB made a great call about it being worth $20B even though it was shocking at the time.

Re: Ask HN: How would you convince your friends and family to switch from WhatsApp?

#105

Post by pilooch »

Ansil849 wrote: post #89

I have stopped communicating with friends and family who try communicating via insecure apps. I send a response saying I will only read Signal or similar messages from them. Some think this is a hardline, but my security is important to me, and true friends and family need to respect that. It's kind of like how my sister is vegan, so when she comes over for dinner, I cook vegan dishes for her. I respect and accommoda…

This works fine until a point in life at which communicating with others and answering to others, meaning you are available for them, whatever the app, is more important than anything else.

Not meaning to not boycott such apps with those you can, just giving another pov from elsewhere in life. Most of my phones are rooted and without google for years, but sometimes...

Life is short, human communication is deep and fragile. Tools do change, renew and improve, while as living humans we get older ;)

Re: Ask HN: How would you convince your friends and family to switch from WhatsApp?

#106

Post by nicoburns »

nostromo wrote: post #96
mbesto wrote: post #85

I just did it with my family, who use FB and know at a high level why FB is bad. Here's what I said: "WhatsApp is now sucking all of your convos (including baby photos, etc.) into Facebook with their recent policy update. We're switching our family group chat to Signal". My mom, who's nearly 70 did it almost instantaneously. EDIT: My parents began to understand why FB is bad by reading books and watching documentarie…

That may be a good motivator, but it's not true. The content of the messages are not going to be "sucked up into Facebook." The content of Whatsapp messages aren't accessible by Facebook.

> The content of Whatsapp messages aren't accessible by Facebook.

You don't know that. Sure the messages are (claimed to be) e2e encrypted. But key exchange goes through Whatsapp (Facebook) servers. So they could give themselves access easily enough if they wanted to.

Re: Ask HN: How would you convince your friends and family to switch from WhatsApp?

#107

Post by ravenstine »

Convince them that "everyone" is using your new alternative. Nobody cares about privacy, security, etc. 80% of people just want to fit in with the rest of the 80%. If they think that their tribe is moving from WhatsApp to CoolNewDoodad then they'll switch.

Trust me, I've explained to people how Zoom has had a history of poor security and ties to the CCP and they basically shrug their shoulders. They don't care about that. What they do care about is being cool and belonging. It's the same reason all the old people who used to scoff at social media are now on Facebook.

Re: Ask HN: How would you convince your friends and family to switch from WhatsApp?

#108

Post by spidersouris »

cassianoleal wrote: post #94
amelius wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right. But this is how you get yourself isolated.

That's the reason why I put off quitting Facebook for years. I have done that a few years ago though, and neither I'm isolated nor I feel like I've lost anything meaningful. I'm still in touch with my dear friends and family, and that will continue without WhatsApp.

Some people just don't have the choice. My university class group depends on Messenger, several family members and friends do too. It may be easier to incite individual people to change messaging services, but when it comes to groups or common social connections, it becomes quite difficult. I can't ask everyone in a group to stop using Messenger just because I don't want to, and neither can I ask my family to contact me solely on Telegram or Signal if other family members refuse to switch. Having everything at the same place is so convenient for most people that it's nearly impossible to provoke this kind of change.

Re: Ask HN: How would you convince your friends and family to switch from WhatsApp?

#109

Post by boogies »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #92
boogies wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it seems to be being somewhat intolerant. Which is a powerful way for minorities to effect change. https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...

The crucial part of that whole post is this caveat: >Second, the cost structure matters quite a bit. It happens in our first example that making lemonade compliant with Kosher laws doesn’t change the price by much, not enough to justify inventories. Might makes right. Being intolerant AND either needing little economic/physical power, or bringing with you significant economic/physical power is what effects change. Wh…

> Either you are important enough to the person that needs to switch apps, or switching the app is so low cost that the person that needs to switch doesn't care. Unfortunately, the switching costs is usually too high for most people's tastes.

Or a mixture. In the case of eg. Matrix or IRC, the cost can be tapping a link and typing a couple things into the browser. That’s probably not low enough for most people to do for everyone they’re in any group chat with, but I think it’s reasonable to do for a family member (my immediate and extended family were willing to do that with Jitsi Meet for me), and most people have a few family members, including enough techy people to make a difference and plant seeds for some change.

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