This article didn’t really give any new reasons not to use WhatsApp. All the reasons stated in the article are already known. I thought this article was about a new breach or something, but it’s a rehash of info that’s been around a while. The article is also a few months old, dating back to April.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned, people will use whatever app they’re most comfortable with and whatever app their friends use, regardless of security (“I got nothing to hide!”) or features (“I don’t care about x or y!”). Then you end up like me, using several different apps. That’s not necessarily a bad thing as I like using different apps and seeing how features differ from app to app, like how an app shows link previews, or if it can display a meme by pasting the link in the text box vs having to download the image and attach it in-line. But it’s hard to get people to switch when a lot of people don’t care.
Then you end up like me, using several different apps. That’s not necessarily a bad thing as I like using different apps and seeing how features differ from app to app, like how an app shows link previews, or if it can display a meme by pasting the link in the text box vs having to download the image and attach it in-line.
I want to thank you for this comment. You made me think of something that felt like my mind was expanding a bit. You’re mentioning a kind of personal decentralized attitude towards what apps we use.
Why stuck to just one? Why put all eggs in one basket? Yeah, I know it’s more comfortable. But being comfortable does not make it safe, failure-proof. With this I’m not trying to point out some faux-pas on your thinking. Rather the reverse. You’re hinting at something that bears a lot of meaning.
Instead of me being frustrated because other people won’t change their platforms, I can see that as an opportunity to decentralize my own practices. I can embrace other people’s immobility as both an example of what I should avoid and of being forced to keep a lot of channels open. While they’re stuck into the centralization trap, I’m federating between different instances.
Again, thank you for your comment. It was really eye opening.
The problem is everybody is using it and its impossible to move to signal etc
Dang, I’m feeling pretty lucky that no one in my life uses WhatsApp. Sounds like that’s not the norm.
In europe literally everybody uses whatsapp you wont be able to do anything without it (docotrs, food delivery, literally every person like friends and familly, corona test results, company customer support, the list goes on)
That’s grossly exaggerated. I live in western Europe and never once used WhatsApp. There are very occasional frictions, like people being surprised I don’t have it. Then when I explain that it’s operated by Facebook, they are also surprised and sometimes are willing to quit themselves.
I live in Europe and I don’t use WhatsApp. Never have. Hasn’t been a problem for me.
Friends and family, sure But in the UK nothing official is using WhatsApp. It’s all SMS or email. In which countries do companies use WhatsApp for customer support?
It’s not nearly as common in the US as it seems to be in many places in Europe.
Also all of South America. Everything from ordering pizza to scheduling a doctor’s appointment. Not having WhatsApp means you are not able to participate in society
I realized that seemed to be the case as I read further down the thread after commenting.
It’s definitely quite strange to most of us from the US.
I’ve never been to South America… Central America, but even that was a very long time ago… Before smartphones and apps.
There’s a lot of little things like that, that are very different here and we just take for granted without thinking twice. I’m in Argentina and have noticed a ton of stuff like this.
A random example is there’s a handle next to the stove where you close the gas line when it’s not in use. They don’t just have an always on supply of naturals gas ready to leak from the burner if you accidentally twist the knob.
Another one is the freezer will seal itself shut for about 15 seconds after being opened. I thought it was broken the first time I experienced this and tried forcing it open.
True that. I wouldn’t use it, but most of my family only uses that so I need it to stay in touch.
EVERYONE in my backwater country of residence uses WhatsApp and they can’t be bothered to use anything else.
When I say I don’t have that service then they are stumped and can’t think of a way to message me. Fucking morons.
Adults in Austria… Sigh.
Not only everybody, but companies, banks and goverment instances are using it too. Some apps that sends their OTP via WhatsApp. Some companies and instances only reachable.via whatsapp bot and whatnot.
Thats smth that i forgot, corona test results per whatsapp and a lot of companies also just have a whatsapp kontskt on their “kontakt us” page
I even deleted it for a year, but had to re-install it due to not being able to group chat
I used signal and SMS for people who weren’t on signal
and even signal removed SMS support so now I use it to talk to 3 people on signal
For some “everyone” not talking to you is a perk.
The people I most care for use Discord. I worry I will lose constant with most of them if I stop using that too but I’ve never tried to get other to use something else.
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I mean yeah, but i would have no contacts to anyone, here in germany we literally use nothing else, contact to teachers for assignments is lost, couldnt text with my family, would have no contact to my friends etc
But what if you messaged them via SMS, would they refuse to reply back?
Idky most people dont eaven have that on their contract i think
When I send sms to these folks, they don’t even notice that they got a message. “Oh, you sent sms? I don’t use that.”
When I send sms to these folks, they don’t even notice that they got a message. “Oh, you sent sms? I don’t use that.”
in my immediate family (brother and parents) we use signal, but everyone else in my life still uses whatsapp. sadly the zucc has a monopolyomn messaging in europe.
What if I’m already not using it?
what if love isn’t enough?
What if love? Baby don’t hurt me
What if gamora?
Then probably a lot of cutting and slashing
It’s owned by meta, which is notoriously bad with your privacy.
Saved you a click.
But it’s still e2e encrypted?
That’s what Meta says.
Meta just reads the message at either end, before or after the encryption.
As someone from Latin America. FUCK!
It’s literally what everyone uses for business, family/friends groups. Don’t know if any country around here is an exception, but we started using it because greedy telecoms were charging so much money for SMS at the time. So, it was a great way to circumvent that.
Then Facebook bought it when it was already established, so it’s improbable that people will move away from it.
The article isn’t very, uh, articulate in its reasoning. Nothing here is an actual real life problem it’s all just what-ifs, and 2 billion people aren’t going to quit using it
A teen in Nebraska was sentenced to 3 months in jail because Facebook turned over her “private” messages but sure, no real life problems with trusting meta with your “encrypted” messages.
I do not disagree with your basic premise and I completely disagree with the Nebraska prosecution but I think people need to understand that everything we do online it’s monitored.
If they can’t get the actual message data, they will use meta data (e.g. two parties sending and receiving data packets that match in size and time of occurrence and protocol and are known to each other) or whatever.
If you are doing something you are worried about other people knowing about, do not use any digital form of communication. Full stop. There is no privacy online.
You’re absolutely right, there’s no privacy online. But there are significantly better alternatives that offer end to end encryption and sometimes digital communication is required.
Yes, I agree, for example credit card transaction processing or business communication with trade secrets in it. For most people doing things they want kept private but which is not illegal, basic encryption is great.
If I were going to plot the overthrow of a government, I’d try to as much as possible offline.
That was Facebook Messenger too, completely different app and problem, not that Whatsapp isnt better or worse.
I used it as an example because they’re both owned by meta and make similar promises on privacy and encryption.
If you wanted something unforgivable Whatsapp is proprietary software and thus restricts your freedom. Using nonfree software is an abuse in of itself.
Time to move to Telegram/Signal
Signal. Just signal
At least Telegram is there for the porn.
This is one of those times when I’m glad we Luddites in the US still use mostly SMS/MMS. I have managed to avoid anything Facebook/Meta and I would have been pissed if the messaging app that all my friends and family were already using was sold to Zuck.
Aren’t SMS less secure though?
Yes, although I’d argue that it’s a pick your poison thing. You can use a system where the content of your texts aren’t secure, or you can let Meta add even more personal information to the dossier it has on you, your friends and the family dog.
Fair enough, it’s sad that there isn’t a popular alternative without the drawbacks of both
Sure, but it’s 10x easier to use the age-old open standard that everyone uses for general communication, that let’s be real, the powers that be probably know I’m heading to my buddy’s house before I say the “be there in 10” text. If you need to have more private conversations, there are better means for that.
I think unlimited texting was a thing in the US since like early to mid 2000s. It was never the case down here (probably still isn’t, since nobody uses it).
In fact, by the time cell phones became ubiquitous down here, it was around the time smart phones were launching. So with regular SMS being expensive, everyone just started using WhatsApp. I think back in the day the app was $1.
It’s kind of fucked-up that Zuckerberg has so much power over people’s businesses, study groups, family communications, neighborhood watches, et al. He could put ads on WhatsApp tomorrow, and people will probably take it, because humans are stubborn and like familiarity in general. I could stop using it today, but I would not be able to participate in a lot of things in society.
You can see it now in Reddit and Twitter. They’ve been completely entshittified and people are still there. In fact, we got people on Lemmy wanting to brigade and participate in r/place and give engagement to that shit-sipper Spez, so he can use the metrics on his damn IPO.
I’ve seen a lot of discussion about why most of the rest of the world uses messaging apps instead of texting, so I understand. And messaging applications are objectively better in almost every way. But the threat of enshittification is always present when people choose a corporate walled garden. Hopefully some of the new EU regulations on account portability will make lock-in less of a concern.
rest of the world
Except New Zealand! Although FB Messenger is more dominant here, plenty of us still use plain old SMS, and I’m really grateful for it.
Its simple. Just make a discord server?
I hate to break it to you.
Not a lemmy user uncritically endorsing centralized, proprietary software. :( , be better than this please!
The day it was bought by Meta(Facebook) people should have moved away if you ask me.
Then again that’s easy for me to say as someone who doesn’t talk to anyone and so doesn’t need any messenger apps. However I hear Signal is good.I haven’t used it since it was purchased by Facebook.
I seem to remember that the former owner of Whatsapp recommended people NOT use it after he sold it to Zuck.
He financed Signal app after walking away from meta and an addition 3/4 of a billion or something like that. He publicly stated that they’re evil. When financing Signal App his one stipulation was don’t do that
I used it to talk to a girl I met in Europe that lived in Croatia. When we stopped talking, I stopped using it.
I had more friends and family urging me to get on Facebook messenger more than anything else, until iMessage really took off then it reverted to sms on my end.
I would like more clickbait title please, thanks.
anymore
???
The mere thought hadn’t even begun to speculate about the merest possibility of crossing my mind…
(Credit to Douglas Adams for the quote… But I’m taking the credit for personally dodging the FB platform)
Good news! I never started!
It’s it not the case that Meta has escrow encryption keys for Whatsapp? This used to be a thing, right? It was never trustworthy because they could always decrypt your comms.
Despite all of its privacy concerns, one can’t really get rid of it if everyone around is using it as the default communication mode, unless you’re a social outcast. The thing with communication apps is that they aren’t a personal choice.
It is possible without beeing a social outcast. Element, Signal, Telegram and Threema cover most of my contacts. If there really is someone with only Whatsapp, I write a SMS.
In my experience everyone has at least one alternative to Whatsapp.
Ungh, my family all uses it. So I’m kind of forced to use it only for one chat as were all far away. I seriously DON’T want it on my phone though.
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I’ve been onboarding people to Signal for years now. Yay Signal!!
Deleted whatsapp in 2016 and never looked back.
Google is pushing RCS pretty hard in a lot of markets. It supplants SMS functionality, and in Google’s own “Messages” app, it operates in a way that the end user doesn’t have to actively select one oro the other.
RCS also has all (or most of) the features you see in other apps like WhatsApp, etc. It has the potential for end-to-end encryption in the spec, and Google says it’s on by default when both parties in a conversation support it, but I don’t know if that’s actually true or marketing bullshit.
Here’s to hoping Google will stick with this one long enough for the standard to take hold. RCS is what messaging should be.
RCS depends on having mobile data, right? What happens if I send a RCS message to someone without data? For me SMS has been a backup solution if I need to be sure the recipient receives the message immediately.
Yeah. RCS requires a data connection – wifi, mobile data, whatever. Specifically, an internet connection. It is, basically, an internet service.
I can’t speak to a lot of different implementations, but Google’s “Messenger” app falls back to SMS transparently. Since RCS is a data service, it has the ability to see if the recipient can receive RCS messages and act appropriately.
It’s also worth noting that data coverage in the modernized world is pretty wide-spread. There aren’t really any more analog cell services, and even the 3G networks are being shut down in favor or 4G / LTE / VoLTE and 5G networks, which are data connections.
And lose the ability to interact with all those people that won’t be convinced to switch to less of a software gore?
Yeah, definitely great idea, so rebel & stuff…
You should read about EU’s proposed law DMA. It aims to solve this problem of not being able to contact friends if you uninstall WhatsApp (or any other app). The link explains it better lol
Weak sauce. If they value you, they’ll get in touch. If they don’t, they never cared in the first place so what does it matter?
