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European civil servants are being forced off WhatsApp

politico.eu

71–80 of 93 posts

Re: European civil servants are being forced off WhatsApp

#71
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't setting up the servers, they already exist for the most part. It is getting anyone to use them. I've seen this play out a few times in Europe. People are extremely resistant to giving up WhatsApp. These rules are so widely flouted that no one takes them seriously, including the people making the rules. It is a bit of theater, meanwhile everyone continues to use WhatsApp. There is no will to actually…

Maybe I'm just too American to understand, but it still baffles me that WhatsApp is used for business purposes. It makes a lot more sense for regular personal messaging, but it seems incredibly unprofessional to me. I would think it bizarre and a bit invasive if my boss tried to text or iMessage me. Are they at least using different accounts for work messaging? Not to mention the app itself was pretty mediocre last t…

You guys use iMessage and go all weird unless the bubble is blue, so I’m not sure why you can’t understand that other countries have their own cultural messaging practices.

Re: European civil servants are being forced off WhatsApp

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all empty political rhetoric. Billions of people exist in the EU. In real terms it has not gone anywhere. Obsession with preserving political dogma, rhetorical forms, atheist appearing syntax and semantics (language that does invoke specific concepts of theology); political and economic abstraction that do not represent reality is not much different from religion. By your measure every nation effectively died…

how many billions?

If you have a point, one of billions, make it.

If you feel the entire premise is wrong over a B and not an M go away. I don't have time for pedants who play "guess my problem."

Re: European civil servants are being forced off WhatsApp

#73
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't setting up the servers, they already exist for the most part. It is getting anyone to use them. I've seen this play out a few times in Europe. People are extremely resistant to giving up WhatsApp. These rules are so widely flouted that no one takes them seriously, including the people making the rules. It is a bit of theater, meanwhile everyone continues to use WhatsApp. There is no will to actually…

Maybe I'm just too American to understand, but it still baffles me that WhatsApp is used for business purposes. It makes a lot more sense for regular personal messaging, but it seems incredibly unprofessional to me. I would think it bizarre and a bit invasive if my boss tried to text or iMessage me. Are they at least using different accounts for work messaging? Not to mention the app itself was pretty mediocre last t…

WhatsApp is a much nicer platform for business (and messaging in general), and the rest of the world would find the American idea of "professional" rather laughable.

Re: European civil servants are being forced off WhatsApp

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economically the EU might not keep pace, but the built infrastructure to live an enjoyable life is there. I certainly had a delightful time visiting the winter markets across Europe, and it seemed like there were a fair number of people living well. While the Eurozone might not be a great place to start a new business it is still a going concern, enough that those top 50 companies all have a European presence.

> infrastructure to live an enjoyable life is there Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but living in the US ain't exactly like Escape from New York or Escape from LA. For every Mississippi there is an analogous place in Europe, and for every Liechtenstein there is an analogous place in the US. I'm not sure if your comment is a counterargument or neutral commentary.

> For every Mississippi there is an analogous place in Europe, and for every Liechtenstein there is an analogous place in the US

Neither are true.

Re: European civil servants are being forced off WhatsApp

#76
post #34

[flagged]

"What have the Romans ever done for us?"

Raped the women, killed almost everybody in the village, burned the village to the ground but, kept some boys to ... tell the world how great the Roman civilisation is.

"Terrific race, the Romans. Terrific".

Re: European civil servants are being forced off WhatsApp

#77
post #33
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't need a diagnosis of my point. Perhaps I should explain further. I'll say that it's more that the assertion that WhatsApp is a big issue is false. Civil servants know stuff is on the record, for example through screenshots from colleagues and the like which is a higher risk than actual control and security issues over WhatApp, so it's more of a distraction from the real security and ethical posture problems. M…

How many EU civil servants are there in London these days, I wonder?

A huge number of them. It's not like we don't work with the EU on a ton of things. Brexit didn't just pull the plug on everything.

Re: European civil servants are being forced off WhatsApp

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all empty political rhetoric. Billions of people exist in the EU. In real terms it has not gone anywhere. Obsession with preserving political dogma, rhetorical forms, atheist appearing syntax and semantics (language that does invoke specific concepts of theology); political and economic abstraction that do not represent reality is not much different from religion. By your measure every nation effectively died…

how many billions?

they were incorrect, it's ~450 million[0] (still 120 million more people than in the USA, i will note)

[0]: https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-histor...

Re: European civil servants are being forced off WhatsApp

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true. We just published a map of it: https://element.io/en/matrix-in-europe

Question, with so many major orgs using it, are there no plans for manual status? The one thing I miss vis-a-vis teams is the ability to manually set myself away, appear offline, busy etc. Matrix shows me as active (green dot) when I have the client open but there's no way to override that. At least none that I found. I'm a bit surprised all these big governmental clients didn't ask for such a feature :)

There's a big gap between lots of orgs using it, and lots of orgs paying for development of it. That said, BWI in Germany is currently funding custom status so it should be coming soon :)

Re: European civil servants are being forced off WhatsApp

#80
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true. We just published a map of it: https://element.io/en/matrix-in-europe

Clicking through and stumbling upon Croatia, which specifies only "Classified deployment", has left me absolutely cackeling. Seems hilarious that they're willing to say that they use it, but unwilling to state if it's for early testing, civilian-level beaurocracy, or Croatia's equivalent of specialized armed forces. That they publicly use it at all is great though, as it likely helps shift the Overton window of what'…

It's more that they haven't gone public with it yet, and it's not for us to out them :)
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