Live data from Hacker News

WhatsApp's new privacy policy is so bad it might be illegal

androidpolice.com

101–110 of 244 posts

Re: WhatsApp's new privacy policy is so bad it might be illegal

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s true. But there’s another problem with something like Matrix. It’s not to be adopted by the masses by design. The clients/apps are miles away from a nerd/tech savvy person would like to use and another few miles away from the UX non-nerds would want to see. So that’s dba anyway - dead before arrival.

I'm not associated with FluffyChat, just want to point out that it appears to be a Matrix client that meets the "UX non-nerds would want to see" requirement: https://matrix.org/docs/projects/client/fluffychat

[deleted]

Re: WhatsApp's new privacy policy is so bad it might be illegal

#102
post #27

Why is it so hard for someone to make a simple WhatsApp competitor with the same business model as the pre-facebook WhatsApp? It was build by just a few people 10 freakin years ago. I wish people valued their privacy higher than $1 a year but I guess many don't.

There is also threema. https://threema.ch/en/

Yes, a niche of a niche, but it exists.

What about Keybase, though? This thread reminded me of its existence and I just renewed it on my iPhone...

Re: WhatsApp's new privacy policy is so bad it might be illegal

#103
post #13

To be honest I feel a bit disenfranchised. I’ve used all my energy to convert all my friends to signal when the WhatsApp privacy policy fiasco happened and now they’re saying it was a waste of time since they don’t want anything to do with bitcoins.. I can’t blame them as I also don’t want this on my messaging app. I feel like I will just give up and use WhatsApp and assume that I only had privacy pre-internet.

What about Wickr. (Assuming you and your friends are not seeking privacy from US government.) I think they have paying customers so unlikely to push ads or sell crypto.

Re: WhatsApp's new privacy policy is so bad it might be illegal

#104
post #13

To be honest I feel a bit disenfranchised. I’ve used all my energy to convert all my friends to signal when the WhatsApp privacy policy fiasco happened and now they’re saying it was a waste of time since they don’t want anything to do with bitcoins.. I can’t blame them as I also don’t want this on my messaging app. I feel like I will just give up and use WhatsApp and assume that I only had privacy pre-internet.

This comment has been shown every time a thread related to WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal is posted..

I don't get it. OPs comment seems completely unrelated to the article

Re: WhatsApp's new privacy policy is so bad it might be illegal

#105

In Jan, there was a big outcry, i thought all would move to signal. I have about 25% of the conversations in signal, but especially for groups, whatsapp is so sticky, that they seem to have broadly failed in signal, and are back to whatsapp. I continue to have individual conversations on signal with most friends, but the idea of being able to leave whatsapp seems to be much tougher than I thought.

Not sure for you, but what makes WhatsApp the stickiest for me out of the chat apps is the statuses (stories). I start many of my conversations on WA by seeing someone's status (story). On Signal, Telegram, or even iMessage, there isn't that nudge to restart the conversation. I think if those platforms made some story-like feature, I'd have an easier time leaving WhatsApp.

That's funny, I don't know anyone who uses that feature.

Re: WhatsApp's new privacy policy is so bad it might be illegal

#106
post #13

To be honest I feel a bit disenfranchised. I’ve used all my energy to convert all my friends to signal when the WhatsApp privacy policy fiasco happened and now they’re saying it was a waste of time since they don’t want anything to do with bitcoins.. I can’t blame them as I also don’t want this on my messaging app. I feel like I will just give up and use WhatsApp and assume that I only had privacy pre-internet.

What about Wickr. (Assuming you and your friends are not seeking privacy from US government.) I think they have paying customers so unlikely to push ads or sell crypto.

What a weird assumption.

Re: WhatsApp's new privacy policy is so bad it might be illegal

#107

Why is it so hard for someone to make a simple WhatsApp competitor with the same business model as the pre-facebook WhatsApp? It was build by just a few people 10 freakin years ago. I wish people valued their privacy higher than $1 a year but I guess many don't.

> It was build by just a few people 10 freakin years ago.

I think this here is the key point, that it was built 10 years ago when smartphones were just catching up and general public needed one working and stable chatting app. Replicating that is not the issue here but making people switch from their "used-to" app is. Not saying that is right or wrong but I get where most of the people are coming from. These apps are now intertwined with normal lives who are either unaware or don't care about their privacy. Also making that switching harder by incorporating more popular apps together like facebook-instagram, facebook-whatsapp doesn't help either.

Re: WhatsApp's new privacy policy is so bad it might be illegal

#108
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, their opinion could be that Bitcoin is extremely wasteful and damaging to our environment for very little value, and so they do not want to support any organization that supports Bitcoin. A boycott, if you will. I’m not arguing that position but I’m just saying that if that is the case, then their boycott is more reasonable than say a “stickers” boycott.

Electric cars have zero emissions, bitcoin has zero emissions ;) Seriously, most mining farms are using geothermal or water dams generators.

And others are running on stolen electricity in residential areas, sonetimes causing fires.

Re: WhatsApp's new privacy policy is so bad it might be illegal

#109
post #13

To be honest I feel a bit disenfranchised. I’ve used all my energy to convert all my friends to signal when the WhatsApp privacy policy fiasco happened and now they’re saying it was a waste of time since they don’t want anything to do with bitcoins.. I can’t blame them as I also don’t want this on my messaging app. I feel like I will just give up and use WhatsApp and assume that I only had privacy pre-internet.

> they don’t want anything to do with bitcoins Honestly, this is a bad argument. You can use Signal and never send a gif or stickers. You don't have to do anything with ~~stickers~~crypto when using Signal. It is an opt-in feature that is probably going to not be used my 90% of people. This is just a bad argument surrounding the whole ordeal. Now the arguments about: regulations, Moxie's involvement (stated he has no…

If you implement any type of cryptocurrency possibility, KYC is around the corner in the United States.

Yes, it may take a while, but the glacier does in fact move.

Re: WhatsApp's new privacy policy is so bad it might be illegal

#110
Quicksy.im / Conversations.im developer here. I promise I’ll never implement crypto currency into my messenger apps.¹

Even if I break my promise you could just use a fork of my app since XMPP servers don’t prevent third party clients from connecting.

¹: I don’t have to either because I have a working business model that’s not a ponzi scheme

Post reply on HN