Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using app

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

451–460 of 1001 posts

Re: WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using app

#451

Post by Hammershaft »

qwertox wrote: post #433
Hammershaft wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telegram is fantastic! Frankly I think it has a better ux then Whatsapp, especially considering the desktop apps.

Telegram isn't serious about privacy. They made my number searchable and notified people who have me in their Google contact list even though I didn't grant Telegram access to my contact list (before the time when Android would enforce this with permissions) and didn't allow them to use my number for anything. Then it turned out that they have a setting where one can opt out, but what good is that if you already were…

Those are fair problems that I wasn't aware of.

Re: WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using app

#452

Post by microtonal »

pmontra wrote: post #450

I'm in the EU. WhatsApp showed me a screen about new term of service right now. There were two buttons, Agree and Not Now. I tapped Not Now, it kept working.

Interesting. I am in the EU as well and got the new terms of service screen. Only an Agree button, but I could avoid agreeing (I hope) by clicking the cross (X) at the top of the dialog.

Re: WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using app

#453

Post by twsted »

pkamb wrote: post #437

The part that creeps me out the most is WhatsApp’s aggressiveness towards getting your Contacts. Other apps want them but WhatsApp hardly works without the permission. Why hasn’t Apple introduced a private/segmented Contacts permission like they have Photos, Location, etc.?

My question, too.

Re: WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using app

#455

Post by linspace »

cercatrova wrote: post #318
renjimen wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was nodding along with your comment, wondering why it had been downvoted until I reached your last statement and couldn't tell if you were being serious or not.

Are they not right though? People don't really care about "privacy", they just want it to work, and work with their friends. You or I can harangue all we want but it doesn't change the fact that people don't care in aggregate.

The next time someone says me "I have nothing to hide" I'm thinking of asking their salary because in my experience when people say that they actually mean they are not afraid of jail but would rather don't have a lot of details being made public like who they vote, their sexual preferences, their wealth or their personal opinion of a lot of their colleagues. Most of these details are easily inferred from their online behavior, not to mention personal chats. Part of the problem is that no one is going to say "I have something to hide". I'm not going to continue this rant because HN is not the audience that needs it but to summarize: defending privacy is an uphill battle and people are not right.

Re: WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using app

#456

Post by jpangs88 »

I get frustrated by things like this, these walled gardens of people I know. I wish I could just switch to signal but I've found people would rather just not talk to me than download a new messenger app

I've settled for just talking to the people I can convince on different messengers and now have ~5 messenger apps on my phone.

Re: WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using app

#457

Post by AnthonyMouse »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #446
MattPalmer1086 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've used Signal for years, and for most of that time only had about three people who also used it in my contacts. My wife recently got her entire extended family to use Signal. She has always refused to use WhatsApp. They all love Signal now, and use it all the time. However, this was during a family crisis. During the Covid lockdowns, many companies I know used Signal as their preferred non corporate communication…

How did the Covid lockdowns and family crisis in your examples affect the choice between Whatsapp and Signal?

If the only way to reach you is to either install Signal or wait until tomorrow when they see you in person, people wait until tomorrow.

If the only way to reach you is to either install Signal or wait a year until the lockdowns are over, people install Signal.

Re: WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using app

#458

Post by Cocktail »

pmontra wrote: post #450

I'm in the EU. WhatsApp showed me a screen about new term of service right now. There were two buttons, Agree and Not Now. I tapped Not Now, it kept working.

Same story here, i think i saw a deadline mentioned at tue bottom

Re: WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using app

#459

Post by Leherenn »

tallanvor wrote: post #449
frereubu wrote: post #22

I'd love to give up WhatsApp, but network effects are key here. I tried moving my extended family off WhatsApp onto Signal a couple of years ago and it failed miserably because the app wasn't nearly as easy to use, and they had all their friends on Whatsapp. Has anyone here had any success moving a large group of people onto something like Signal or Telegram? If so, do you have any tips?

My response to anyone is "I'm sorry, but I don't use WhatsApp or Instagram, and I rarely use Facebook because I don't trust them. You can reach me through X, Y, or Z." If someone refuses to make an actual call, text me, email me, or use Signal, then clearly they don't respect me enough for me to need to communicate with them.

When I had roommates, one only wanted to use services A, B, ... and another one C, D, ... with no intersection between the 2 sets. So we had 2 group chats on two different services and we had to transfer messages from one to the other.

I don't know whom was not respecting whom, but I didn't feel really respected either, despite respecting each guy wishes.

Re: WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using app

#460

Post by microtonal »

mr_toad wrote: post #350
seesawtron wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social life is impossible without the mainstream technology. Sure you can find alternatives but if no one uses it other than you, you end up being sidelined. The technology gets enforced and leaves one with no choice but to accept it or be a red flag. Shouldn't it be possible to delete your whatsapp chat and contacts data regularly from the cloud? Eg. one could delete the whatsapp account, clear data on cloud and mak…

> Social life is impossible without the mainstream technology. If people won’t go to the trouble of using an alternate way of getting in touch with you then they’re not really your friends.

Whatsapp is used (at least here in the EU) for a lot more than staying in touch with your friends. E.g. having a young kid, it's used for: the class' group, arranging playdates, etc. Not using Whatsapp makes it much harder to arrange your social life and that of your kids.

Then there are also many organizations/companies that use Whatsapp to set appointments, for chat support, etc.

In many EU countries Whatsapp is pretty much replaced SMS. Only a small minority of folks have Signal or Telegram. iMessage is probably the only other thing that shows as a blip on the radar, but only a portion of the population has iDevices.

I agree that this is a bad situation, but WhatsApp became popular when it was still independent and their profit model was charging 1 Euro per year (which was much cheaper than SMS). Now abandoning Whatsapp is difficult due to network effects.

Post reply on HN