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

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

#201

Post by beckman466 »

Shmebulock wrote: post #195
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why privacy protection has to come from the top (i.e. regulators), because most people don't know and/or don't care. "we" care, up to the point of "it's too much effort", and "we" have tried to do a grassroots movement to get people to use more privacy-focused apps. But these apps, in the end, are still owned by companies who are not charities; they want to earn money, and digitally, it feels like you can on…

>Which is why privacy protection has to come from the top (i.e. regulators), because most people don't know and/or don't care. I think there should only be legislation about stuff people care about.

Looking at the mass surveillance revelations by Snowden and other whistleblowers I'd say many people do care.

What makes you say people don't?

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

#202

Post by codethief »

lorenzhs wrote: post #175
LordAtlas wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Signal UX for groups is truly terrible. It looks like a rainbow puked in there. And heaven help you if you use their crappy desktop client. It doesn't sync with your mobile client unless you open the app on your phone, and then syncs everything slowly, which messes up your group chats if you happen to send another message in between.

When is the last time you used it? Because I have none of these issues. None. Especially since "It doesn't sync with your mobile client unless you open the app on your phone" is architecturally completely wrong. The desktop client doesn't communicate through your phone. That's how WhatsApp web works, but Signal Desktop doesn't.

Same here, both Signal groups and Signal desktop work flawlessly for me.

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

#203

Post by kua60 »

intrasight wrote: post #196

Honest question. What do Signal and WhatsApp bring to the table that I'm not getting with the messaging apps built into my phones? Me and all my friends and family just use those, and nobody has ever asked me to communicate with Signal or WhatsApp.

I think whatsapp and signal gained real momentum in countries where sending too many text messages was super expensive than having a cheap internet pack and send unlimited messages using whatsapp or signal

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

#204

Post by emptysongglass »

chii wrote: post #77
ryandrake wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I see it, you can choose to be part of the problem or not. And with a product that gets stronger the more people use it, then using it is part of the problem. You can’t complain about how So-And-So company’s products are bad, but then say “but I can’t bear to stop using em!” I cut all of FB and their ecosystem out of my life years ago. Can’t say this one person out of billions has had an effect on the company…

> “but I can’t bear to stop using em!” well, it requires sacrifice on your part to stop messaging your friends. Most people would not give up their friends for "the greater good" of stopping privacy intrusion (which won't have an effect until the majority of people give up whatsapp first). I can see why most people won't fight the good fight.

Your really good friends won't stop messaging you just because you've left Facebook.

If anything, leaving Facebook was a wake-up call as to who my very good friends were.

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

#205

Post by Geee »

erispoe wrote: post #194
Geee wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should educate themselves on why bitcoin is useful and why it's not wasteful, rather than ignore it based on false assumptions. This series of short articles is very good for those who want to learn the fundamentals: https://tomerstrolight.medium.com/why-bitcoin-the-series-660...

The argument in your link boils down to: it will bring the economy down to a deflationary halt, so it's friendly to the environment. Great.

There are 19 articles and the argument doesn't boil to anything. Just one minor argument is that deflationary money system reduces overconsumption. That's not a 'deflationary halt'.

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

#206

Post by DyslexicAtheist »

user-the-name wrote: post #176
DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

please get in touch by email, I have a business proposal for you. I highly recommend Robert Cialdini before making opinionated comments on trust: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influence:_Science_and_Practic...

No, because, and this is very crucial: I don't trust you.

sounds like you did not understand that this was rhetorical?

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

#207

Post by kevincox »

intrasight wrote: post #196

Honest question. What do Signal and WhatsApp bring to the table that I'm not getting with the messaging apps built into my phones? Me and all my friends and family just use those, and nobody has ever asked me to communicate with Signal or WhatsApp.

My messaging apps built into your phone do you mean SMS? Or iMessage or RCS?

Because SMS leaves a lot on the table. It is okay if you want to send just text but doesn't support rich features such as reactions, replies various forms of formatting or media. It is also very insecure. iMessage and RCS provide more but have their own limitations particularly across platforms.

Furthermore other messaging apps provide a wide variety of features and aren't tied to (often temporary) identifiers such as phone numbers.

So SMS may be sufficient for many people but I'm surprised that you haven't encountered people using other communications tools that are much more full featured.

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

#208

Post by frombody »

Aeolun wrote: post #80
frombody wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They attempted to force people to pay $1/yr. but that backfired hard because they couldn't figure out how to do the rollout, offered nothing in return, and suffered the backlash of their mismanagement. Even just giving paid users some small extra features or a little icon by their name or something small would have been enough to get people willingly give a dollar rather than their approach of trying to charge people…

You think whatsapp service isn’t worth $1 per year? I was perfectly happy to pay that.

Of course it was worth a dollar before it went to facebook, the problem was they didn't plan how they were going to charge people.

They only charged some users, not everyone, because they couldn't figure out how to do it.. and who got charged was relatively random.

Those that did get charged could just complain and the subscription fee would just go away.

Value is one thing, but only charging a fraction of your customer base at what seemingly felt like random was never going to gain public acceptance.

I don't even think they even had a plan for how to deal with poorer nations in Africa where the app is exremely popular.

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

#209

Post by msrenee »

levosmetalo wrote: post #160
godelski wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I'm not trying to say that their concerns are invalid. They very much are valid. I don't think you can win by just having a better app. Marketing plays a big role. So something like Signal is going to be a major underdog because OSS and freeware don't have the same cashflow to do marketing. What I'm trying to say is that we need to be that marketing. Talking about data and privacy _is_…

Sorry but Signal is just not a "better app". Yes, it has privacy and such, but the app itself is worse. I'm not even talking about missing features like not having chat backups, but the UI itself is slow and unpolished. - scrolling contact list is slow and stutters - opening Signal displays empty frame far too long - it's not possible to add/invite a person during the call, you need to define groups for group calls -…

I'm not using signal as my main SMS app because until a week ago, it didn't notify me when I got a text. Which is kind of a problem.

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

#210

Post by pkulak »

dx034 wrote: post #137
pkulak wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I set up a Matrix server for my family, and then bridged in everyone else I know who uses iMessage. Now at least I'm chatting in a single app.

That means your family can't communicate if your server is down?

Yup. Just like how we couldn't communicate for 2 days when Signal's servers went down a few weeks before I made the switch.

The difference with me is that my server has a dozen users and I could rebuild the whole thing from backups on a brand new provider in a couple hours if I needed to. I doubt I'll need to, though. It's not exactly working hard. :D

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