81–90 of 173 posts
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> Sorry, is it naive to think that Facebook bought WhatsApp for its userbase and technology? Well, no. Absolutely not. Until you notice the 20B pricetag. I'm not seeing 20B worth of ads on WhatsApp, are you?
From my limited understanding of WhatsApp revenues were healthy prior to the buyout. I have seen some revenue estimates since the buyout that could justify the sale price, should they be accurate.
Dark patterns trick WhatsApp users to enable backups to Google and Apple. If you have them disabled odds are good the other side got tricked into them. Even if your backups are encrypted, it's using only a 64bit key. That means Five Eyes have near real-time access to your "encrypted" messages. Hell, I have to decline backups every time I use WhatsApp on my iPhone, yet after a phone reset all my messages were still th…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Sorry, is it naive to think that Facebook bought WhatsApp for its userbase and technology? Well, no. Absolutely not. Until you notice the 20B pricetag. I'm not seeing 20B worth of ads on WhatsApp, are you?
From my limited understanding of WhatsApp revenues were healthy prior to the buyout. I have seen some revenue estimates since the buyout that could justify the sale price, should they be accurate.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's naive to think WhatsApp was bought for a different purpose. Sorry, is it naive to think that Facebook bought WhatsApp for its userbase and technology?
> Sorry, is it naive to think that Facebook bought WhatsApp for its userbase and technology? Well, no. Absolutely not. Until you notice the 20B pricetag. I'm not seeing 20B worth of ads on WhatsApp, are you?
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I don't think you can quantify it in neat charts and numbers. But I suggest that the depraved individuals who consume such materials are already used to being outliers and willing to go to extremes to procure such materials, so in most cases they'll just use whatever dark web crap will serve it. They aren't all as thick as Gary Glitter unfortunately. Meanwhile 99% of innocent people will be hugely inconvenienced by w…
But I suggest that the depraved individuals who consume such materials are already used to being outliers [...] The perception of those people also has to change. I would guess most of them will not have made a conscious choice to be attracted to children in the same way that most homosexuals will not have decided to be attracted to the same sex. So they have to deal with a desire that they can never fulfill without…
Also, sometimes the most strident voices of condemnation are seeking to draw attention away from their own criminality. A couple of months ago a guy in Southern California was arrested and charged with not just possession but production of CP and other sexual offenses. He had a private room on his business premises that he used for these crimes. In 2021, he had hosted an anti-child-sex-trafficking rally in the parking lot of the same business location.
Likewise, think of the numerous cases of moral crusaders against fornication/ homosexuality/ whatever that turn out to have been engaged in the same behavior that they regularly denounce. Dishonest people see no problem with being a pastor or community leader and bilking the suckers foolish enough to donate to them.
Dark patterns trick WhatsApp users to enable backups to Google and Apple. If you have them disabled odds are good the other side got tricked into them. Even if your backups are encrypted, it's using only a 64bit key. That means Five Eyes have near real-time access to your "encrypted" messages. Hell, I have to decline backups every time I use WhatsApp on my iPhone, yet after a phone reset all my messages were still th…
They largely failed though, as for political (and maybe also technical) reasons the merge was cancelled.
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Which entity? I'm not sure the UK would have the mandate to fine a foreign company who's not operating in the UK. They'd just create a company whatsapp UK, license technology, have no other links to meta and have a revenue of about 0.
The UK government can legally fine any company doing business in the UK. It can probably fine any company anywhere. A financial fiction that "WhatsApp UK" had nothing to do with Meta is not going to affect that. It's just collection that is the problem, but I would imagine that they would go after Meta's UK advertising revenue.
Dark patterns trick WhatsApp users to enable backups to Google and Apple. If you have them disabled odds are good the other side got tricked into them. Even if your backups are encrypted, it's using only a 64bit key. That means Five Eyes have near real-time access to your "encrypted" messages. Hell, I have to decline backups every time I use WhatsApp on my iPhone, yet after a phone reset all my messages were still th…
Source for 64-bit key part? Seems unreasonably low.
It's intriguing which battles they choose. It wasn't long since there was a discussion where some people were arguing that they can't make moral judgements because disobeying the law would put them in a very difficult situation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35028107&
With E2EE, they can legally skirt such demands since they can claim they don't have the data so that's a win for them as well.
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I know in some non-US countries, WhatsApp is the default way of communicating (like SMS is in the US). Is that true in the UK? That could put significant pressure on the government
I don't know about the UK, but in Italy everyone is on WhatsApp, grandparents included, and without it the country would shut down in a couple of hours. In addition, Italians create WhatsApp group chats for everything. Heck, my sport club has three separate whatsapp groups: a general one, one for the senior's team, and a third one to broadcast official information.