So my real life fb profile may end up on somebody's suggestions list because I happened to have contacted them on WhatsApp?
I guess it's time to say goodbye to my fb account.
WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using app
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Re: WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using app
#952Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the opposite point of view, in the last hour I’ve been added to 3 different group chats on Signal that were all previously WhatsApp chats (in which I did not participate, in spite of many of those friends repeatedly asking me to). That’s added at least 20 or 30 friends/acquaintances into my signal contact list that I’m 99% sure downloaded signal for the first time this morning.
Why not just use SMS/iMessage groups ?
International SMS is quite expensive and sometimes unreliable.
iMessage is only for Apple devices.
Re: WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using app
#953It's harder for US folks to understand just how much of a monopoly WhatsApp has in Europe and the UK. Pretty much all of our school and local community communication happens via WhatsApp. I'd change to Signal or Telegram in a heartbeat, but the inertia is so great it's not possible. It pains me to say, but we're getting to the point where companies like Twitter, Facebook and Google need to be treated like utilities o…
I'm also in the UK and I deleted WhatsApp 2 years ago when it became clear that Facebook intended to move in the direction of fuller integration (I deleted my Facebook account after 1 month of usage 10 years ago). However, I had to reinstall WhatsApp because all of my kid's sports activities and school updates are organised through WhatsApp groups and it is impossible to participate without WhatsApp. Much as I believ…
Re: WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using app
#954Earlier 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.
Indeed, I was playing the devil's advocate. I definitely care about privacy and I am quite an ardent supported of projects that try to solve this issue. I just learned that if privacy comes at a large expense (losing their social graph or unfriendly UX), people will not care for it. So I guess we need to do better so we can have both privacy and good UX.
I'd hoped so! Somethings are lost in text and you know what they say about assuming
Re: WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using app
#955Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Twitter, Facebook and Google need to be treated like utilities [...] Our generation is reinventing the wheel here, our ancestors had exactly the same problems with the power, water, gas, telephone and rail networks (at some point in time, all those were unregulated and privately owned) and did exactly that. Critical infrastructure needs to be heavily, regulated if not outright publicly owned.
I think similarly to how europe has forced Banks to interoperate by making them write a protocol that can interoperate, governments need to force social media companies to write down a protocol and use it. I like the analogy with utilities, but the issue is that we pay for electricity, but we don't pay for our usage of social media. As long as that's true we can difficulty do what I'm suggesting above
I think India's Unified Payments Interface is a better analogy here. From what I understand (as an outsider, so based only on what I've read) it provides a universal API for mobile applications to interface with banks, essentially standardizing the federation of bank transfers. Therefore, your account at bank X can be used to pay an account at bank Y for some service that uses app Z.
Re: WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using app
#956It's harder for US folks to understand just how much of a monopoly WhatsApp has in Europe and the UK. Pretty much all of our school and local community communication happens via WhatsApp. I'd change to Signal or Telegram in a heartbeat, but the inertia is so great it's not possible. It pains me to say, but we're getting to the point where companies like Twitter, Facebook and Google need to be treated like utilities o…
Assign everyone an IP V6, there's plenty. Then treat that as our internet phone number. Define a chat protocol that contains the very basics and everyone has to support that. Want to send a chat, you have their IP V6. Exchange using QR code. No server necessary for the basics. If a text fails sending device can keep trying or just give up. This takes chat away from any single service.
username checks out
Re: WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using app
#957Earlier quoted context omitted.
Depending on your exact needs either Telegram or (preferably IMO) Matrix might be a solution. (Yes, I think this is correct: For anyone who are currently on WhatsApp or anything Facebook for that matter even Telegram is a huge improvement in most ways.)
Telegram is not better than WhatsApp in the very important aspect that it is not end-to-end encrypted. You can balance up the risks of facebook inserting malicious code into their client against the risks of your data being accessable at rest on Telegram's servers, but it's not at all clear Telegram is in a better spot there.
e2e encryption is mostly moot considering neither the client-application nor -device are really trustworthy.
then there is the problem with push-notifications passing throu either google or apple as well as device-backups which both hand over your metadata and probably message content.
imo telegram is in a better spot simply because it is not affilliated with the facebook/google ecosystem but in the end it does not make much of a difference due to aforementioned systematic deficiencies.
imo good reasons to cash in on the platform compatibility and convenience of telegrams cloud-messaging architecture.
Re: WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using app
#958Many comments are about how people would love to jump ship and switch to whatever other service. Well, there’s an IM service already deployed to all mobile systems and it’s called SMS. All that’s needed is some sanity in the pricing, some modernization of support for multimedia and cross-device sharing/archiving. This whole industry exists for 1 sole reason: telco ineptitude
Well, is it encrypted?
thu
Re: WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using app
#959For people looking to switch to Signal without Google Play services on Android (apk installation), the best way to fix the websocket battery drain is this: https://www.reddit.com/r/signal/comments/ewp99j/disable_webs... Unlike Telegram, WhatsApp, Element etc. which work fine without Google, Signal devs have repeteadly refused to make improvements to the "always-awake" mode which happily eats 40% battery.
I either do not have this issue, or it doesn't show up for me on the battery usage page. Are you sure it is widespread? (I have no GAPPS, LineageOS 17.1 -- on Galaxy S4).
With that said, there is some work being done towards a FLOSS replacement for firebase [1]. Gotify can be used as a backend [2], among others ([3] too, I think). Not ready for prime-time, but almost, and development started pretty recently (mid-December).
[1] #openpush:bubu1.eu (https://matrix.to/#/!ajsXAmvYUOjfmMJnGJ:bubu1.eu)
[1] https://github.com/UnifiedPush/UP-spec/blob/main/specificati...
Re: WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using app
#960Earlier quoted context omitted.
And tell them what? Please all go install a different app? That only works if you can get everybody on board, it's unacceptable if a parent gets left out because he isn't there that day or cannot get it to work. You would also have to explain to them that Facebook cannot read your messages, but they can see the meta data. And then you have to explain to them what meta data is. I think your kid is not going to appreci…
Wait for them to ask the why, tell them as succinctly as you can that fb is evil and there are alternatives.
How do you tell them succinctly in a way they can understand that the company that makes two of their favorite apps IG and WhatsApp is evil?