this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2023
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Privacy

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This may sound a bit dumb, but eh.

So when that WhatsApp privacy policy change thing happened in early 2021, I tried switching from WhatsApp to Signal and Telegram. Telegram kinda stuck with me since i still get news from there, but Signal... not really because I didn't care about privacy back then. Now, I want to make the switch from WhatsApp to Signal, and I have a few plans on how to do that. But, is it worth it, since most people in Türkiye use Whatsapp and even if I switch my family and friends over to Signal, they'll still use WhatsApp since most people are on there.

So, yeah. Should i try, or is it not worth doing? Let me know, also, thanks in advance!

(Note: Most of my family and friends don't really care about privacy.)

(Note 2: This was also posted in r/signal and r/privacy subreddits.)

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (7 children)

I see a lot of people in this thread talking about an EU regulation that will allow interoperability between messengers. I'm an EU citizen living here and this is, on one hand, amazing, because we can finally ditch proprietary apps and still keep in touch with people that still use them.

On the other hand, I'm concerned about the privacy implications of this. Converting people to Signal is pretty difficult in most cases, however, once they download it and start using it, Facebook gets no messages and metadata from our chats. If this interoperability comes into play, most people will see no reason in downloading Signal, since they can chat with people on Signal anyway. This would mean, that Facebook would still get the chats.

To me, this looks like a desperate way for Big Tech to keep profiting off user data even though better alternatives exist, while making it even more difficult to get people on these better platforms.

What do you guys think about this?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Conversely they could more easily be convinced to make the switch, since they could still communicate with their contacts without forcing them (and in turn the entire social graph) to change app too.
If it's implemented well I think it will be mostly beneficial and it could actually end up slowly transitioning a lot of people to privacy respecting apps whereas before it seemed so impossible, due to this chicken and egg problem

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