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WhatsApp is back online in Brazil
71–80 of 172 posts
Re: WhatsApp is back online in Brazil
#72Out of curiosity, what did Brazil use before WhatsApp existed? It seems strange to me that 1 app can capture such an overwhelming majority, because it's just a client, of which there have always been dozens if not hundreds.
SMS was expensive in Brazil before Whatsapp. Furthermore, it took more than half an hour to a SMS arrive in most of the time, sometime more than a day.
A lot of people don't pay cellular data plan and use whatsapp on wifi.
Whatsapp arrived as a free service on android. The app was really fast even in slow smartphone. And uses your cellphone number as id, so it was really easy to know whom was using. I made a lot of people to use whatapp, because it show if you had send the message and if the other person has read. A problem I had with SMS.
And others messengers? (IMHO) * iMessage is restrict on iPhone and Android dominate market share in Brazil. * Facebook Message was only put in a different app latter in the game. And Facebook App is a bloatware, so it is practically unused on slow smartphones. * Skype app was slow and it didn't use your cellphone number, so I had to ask personally. * Gtalk didn't synchronized messages correctly and I never saw someone outside tech people using it. (Hangout fix the first problem).
A few others tried: Kik, WeChat, zapzap (Brazilian messenger). But none has the mass use. Now days, even my gramma is using Whatapp, so it will be difficult to change.
Telegram is increasing the number of people. I had a lot of friends sign up during this blockage.
Re: WhatsApp is back online in Brazil
#73> the idea that everyone in Brazil can be denied the freedom to communicate the way they want is very scary in a democracy Says the person (in name of the company, I assume) whose company blocks things they don't "like", such as messages containing telegram.org or telegram.me[1]. Now Facebook is not a democracy and they can block and censor pretty much any message they like, but now they go on to tell Brazil how it s…
Am I missing something? Just tried it on my phone and it works fine in on my end, is this something that just doesn't get converted to a link on the other side? Not converting something to a link is a far cry from outright censorship, still pretty shady in a mostly meaningless way, though.
It doesn't convert to link and it doesn't allow you to copy the message.
Re: WhatsApp is back online in Brazil
#74> the idea that everyone in Brazil can be denied the freedom to communicate the way they want is very scary in a democracy Says the person (in name of the company, I assume) whose company blocks things they don't "like", such as messages containing telegram.org or telegram.me[1]. Now Facebook is not a democracy and they can block and censor pretty much any message they like, but now they go on to tell Brazil how it s…
Mark Zuckerberg "urged" Brazilians to tell Congress to "ban bans of online services" in the name of democracy.
Am I an irrational nationalist for believing he shouldn't get into the politics of any country (especially outside of the US)?
Last time someone tried to help us (Brazilians), we got a military dictatorship.
Re: WhatsApp is back online in Brazil
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do businesses manage to communicate with clients through their zaps when there isn't an official API nor a CRM oriented Whatsapp client. Also, aren't they breaking the SLA? Just curious...
Mostly small business literally typing on their phones. Really bizarre.
I guess if this happens on a market where Whatsapp serves 10% of its entire user base, FB sees an opportunity to make back the billions it paid for it by offering a paid API to businesses.
Re: WhatsApp is back online in Brazil
#76> the idea that everyone in Brazil can be denied the freedom to communicate the way they want is very scary in a democracy Says the person (in name of the company, I assume) whose company blocks things they don't "like", such as messages containing telegram.org or telegram.me[1]. Now Facebook is not a democracy and they can block and censor pretty much any message they like, but now they go on to tell Brazil how it s…
> Facebook is not a democracy and they can block and censor pretty much any message they like, but now they go on to tell Brazil how it should run its judicial system Yeah, Facebook is a company - not a country. You can't compare apples to oranges. Facebook can do whatever it want and people are free to chose to use it service or not. Brazilians had no choice on this case.
> Facebook can do whatever it want
As long as what they want to do is legal.
Re: WhatsApp is back online in Brazil
#77> the idea that everyone in Brazil can be denied the freedom to communicate the way they want is very scary in a democracy Says the person (in name of the company, I assume) whose company blocks things they don't "like", such as messages containing telegram.org or telegram.me[1]. Now Facebook is not a democracy and they can block and censor pretty much any message they like, but now they go on to tell Brazil how it s…
There is a huge difference between "the government of Brazil denying everyone the freedom to communicate the way they want" and "facebook not auto-linking to a competitor's site in a chat program." You're comparing a government making communication through a specific (and popular) channel illegal, and a company not providing a link to a website as they send your message to your recipient. I know Hacker News enjoys ge…
I think it is a fair comparison. Facebook isn't for free expression, they are for their business. The Brazilian Gov can be questioned in the Justice System, but doing so against "Freedom". Facebook dubious position about the right to be informed and the desire to control the information we access is a greater menace to freedom of expression than any ignorant Brazilian lower judge.
Re: WhatsApp is back online in Brazil
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe this is obvious, or that I'm wrong, but the issue in Brazil is that most Brazilians are left-wing conservatives AND within in recent past put the current government in power. Long term this is the issue, not these "cyber attacks" - which are to me very problematic, but only a symptom of the issue.
What does "left-wing conservatives" mean?
maybe the same as right-wing liberals, that is, complete nonsense.
Re: WhatsApp is back online in Brazil
#79Out of curiosity, what did Brazil use before WhatsApp existed? It seems strange to me that 1 app can capture such an overwhelming majority, because it's just a client, of which there have always been dozens if not hundreds.
SMS. It was a big focus for a lot of telcos until recently. WhatsApp usage seem to have gone hand in hand with increased availability of smartphones (Android, mostly). I don't remember any other mobile messaging app that had widespread usage before that.
exactly. remember, the US was not the reason FB shelled out to buy 'em
Re: WhatsApp is back online in Brazil
#80Out of curiosity, what did Brazil use before WhatsApp existed? It seems strange to me that 1 app can capture such an overwhelming majority, because it's just a client, of which there have always been dozens if not hundreds.
SMS was expensive in Brazil before Whatsapp. Furthermore, it took more than half an hour to a SMS arrive in most of the time, sometime more than a day. A lot of people don't pay cellular data plan and use whatsapp on wifi. Whatsapp arrived as a free service on android. The app was really fast even in slow smartphone. And uses your cellphone number as id, so it was really easy to know whom was using. I made a lot of p…
WhatsApp (or ZapZap as it is informally called here) used to work even in old Nokia phones (non android).
The Telcos cartel created a lot of "innovations" in Brazil. It is so expensive to call between different telcos, that people have multiple phones with multiple chips each.