Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices • Hacker News Board

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#341

Post by eesmith » Wed, Jun 18, 2025, 4:53 AM UTC

mgraczyk wrote: post #299

EGreg wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They usually just do a mea culpa: Camera: https://www.bitdefender.com/en-us/blog/hotforsecurity/facebo... Audio: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41424016 Conversations: https://www.vice.com/en/article/facebook-said-it-wasnt-liste... Mass surveillance: https://thehill.com/video/facebook-spying-on-users-new-repor... Across the web: https://www.wired.com/story/ways-facebook-tracks-you-limit-i... Beacon: https://www…

I was around for a lot of these. In none of these cases did Meta lie. They are all either fake or honest mistakes that Meta never lied about. For the second one in particular, Meta never listened to anyone's mic. I would know, I worked on this stuff there at that time.

Are you doing one of those 'a lie requires intention, and we can't know their internal state of mind, so we can't know if something is a lie unless they tell us' things?

Do you consider misrepresentation a lie?

If there's a lawsuit which determines that Meta misrepresented something, do you consider that a lie, even if Meta says it was merely on honest mistake made in good faith?

If the European Commission "fines Facebook €110 million for providing misleading information about WhatsApp takeover" and that "contrary to Facebook's statements in the 2014 merger review process, the technical possibility of automatically matching Facebook and WhatsApp users' identities already existed in 2014, and that Facebook staff were aware of such a possibility" then that statement was not actually a lie, right, because no one at Facebook said they lied, correct?

Can you give an example of any company which has lied, but where the company officials have never agreed with that conclusion?

There is a long history in the US of companies having to pay a fine but never accepting responsibility. https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/paying-a-fine-bu...

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#342

Post by scott_w » Wed, Jun 18, 2025, 4:54 AM UTC

coliveira wrote: post #304

Cheer2171 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the entire rest of society has wrapped itself around Facebook, Whatsapp, and Instagram. It is easy to be a free software purist until you need to know if your child's school has a snow day. Websites and mailing lists are dead. I cannot be involved in my child's school or any of the informal social networks around the parents and teachers without using Meta's platforms. I cannot volunteer at a non-profit I car…

Nobody can be forced to use these apps. If you don't want, they will find some other way, I personally only respond to email.

Then you’ll be excluded from a lot of groups and social activities without even knowing. That might be an acceptable trade off for you but it's a trade off nonetheless.

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#343

Post by WhereIsTheTruth » Wed, Jun 18, 2025, 4:54 AM UTC

It's interesting how the narrative about Iran is changing, WhatsApp?!, i thought they were still living in the middle age under a totalitarian dictatorship and with no access to technology whatsoever /s

"Asks" instead of banning? yet the US wants to ban TikTok

Israel will be US/UK's scapegoat, they'll pretend they are the good guy while they force Israel into a war nobody wants

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#344

Post by wordofx » Wed, Jun 18, 2025, 4:56 AM UTC

perihelions wrote: post #100

Saris wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read around their points, it sounds like they track general location, log group messages, and provide specific information on request to a government.

Meta can also just lie about it. If they were secretly granting backdoor root access to some NSA spooks, like Microsoft did with PRISM or AT&T did with 641A, most likely no one would find out, so, there'd be zero actual downside to simply lying.

Meta does lie. They lie about e2e.

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#345

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 18, 2025, 4:58 AM UTC

lenerdenator wrote: post #237

anon291 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why we should be 'fine' with people existing in their pre-1967 borders. I'm not advocating any military action, but the idea that we should just shrug while a great classical civilization's entire history and archaeology are being held hostage by iconoclastic religious zealots is not something any humanitarian should just shrug at.

It’s a reference to borders that do not include Gaza, the Golan Heights, or the West Bank. It’s likely that any two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine crisis would roughly look like how things were before the Six-Day War. However, I’m getting more at the fact that Iran is unwilling to accept a two-state solution because necessarily, one of those two states would be Israel.

[deleted]

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#346

Post by udev4096 » Wed, Jun 18, 2025, 5:15 AM UTC

mgraczyk wrote: post #298

RajT88 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meta lies about all kinds of other things. No reason not to now - they seem to have paid very little penalty so far for getting caught.

Is there any evidence Meta has ever intentionally lied about anything? Like do you have any examples?

Congrats on living under a fucking rock. How can you be so oblivion to such an obvious thing? The question should be, when have they ever not lied?

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#347

Post by benced » Wed, Jun 18, 2025, 5:17 AM UTC

perihelions wrote: post #100

Saris wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read around their points, it sounds like they track general location, log group messages, and provide specific information on request to a government.

Meta can also just lie about it. If they were secretly granting backdoor root access to some NSA spooks, like Microsoft did with PRISM or AT&T did with 641A, most likely no one would find out, so, there'd be zero actual downside to simply lying.

You can go decompose the binary and check (or monitor network activity). WhatsApp has been audited for implementing E2E encryption and consistently passed.

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#348

Post by shafyy » Wed, Jun 18, 2025, 5:27 AM UTC

jibe wrote: post #335

zzzoom wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does web-to-app tracking through localhost on Android that is illegal under GDPR count?

Did they intentionally lie about it? Parent post didn't claim Meta has never broken a law.

Lying by ommission is still lying.

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#349

Post by dandanua » Wed, Jun 18, 2025, 5:32 AM UTC

FridayoLeary wrote: post #278

worik wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Saddam Hussain was a genocidal, fascist lunatic. Yes. > The world is certainly a better place with him gone. Even if America didn't handle the subsequent occupation too well, i would argue (and you are free to disagree) that Iraq was still better off. That is mad talk. Things have been much worse, so much worse for almost everyone in and around Iraq since that war. ISIS for one thing, was a direct result of the per…

It's like saying that russia is worse off after the collapse of communism and attributing that to capitalism.

It's true, because that system worked for a few generations of people. A sudden change, even for a theoretically better system, can't make things better for people. Now we can see how much worse things became. Russia is completely deranged state at the moment, much much worse than Iran.

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#350

Post by consumer451 » Wed, Jun 18, 2025, 5:32 AM UTC

mgraczyk wrote: post #298

RajT88 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meta lies about all kinds of other things. No reason not to now - they seem to have paid very little penalty so far for getting caught.

Is there any evidence Meta has ever intentionally lied about anything? Like do you have any examples?

Ha. This is why the best lawyers in the world work for these people. Over drinks, when I brought up some of the blatant dark patterns in the ad market, someone who worked at one of the biggest companies in the world responded to me bluntly: "yeah, sure, but have we ever lost a case in court over click fraud? No, we have not."