• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

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

Fbh

Member
Damn, got the notification literally while reading this thread lol.

Guess I'll just have to go with it. It's the default messaging app here.
I'm screwed anyway, need to have Whatsapp, Facebook and Instagram anyway for my business (it's the only reason I use social media at all, don't really have a personal account).
 

kittoo

Cretinously credulous
I use Telegram. Better than this.

Facebook+Whatsapp is deadly in my country, they are partnered up with the biggest telecom provider so it's even worse for privacy concerns. The Indian Facebook head was even a member of the BJP, the majority right-wing fascist party. They don't treat everyone fairly and refuse to censor right wing voices which call for violence and spread fake news as they know the leading party would shut them down.

Fuck off with this bullshit. Do you even know what fascist means? You can keep abusing Modi all day and nothing would happen. You also know it. That's not fascist. Try saying something against Uddhav in Maharashtra (for the uninitiated, its a state in india where opposing parties rule and put people in jail for criticizing them on social media). Or go to China and see what real dictatorship seems like (Jack Ma is learning it right now).
And you want FB to be more like Twitter, where only left wing rules? Not very liberal of you. I dont see BJP shutting down Twitter even though Twitter goes against right wing hard and censors right wing unfairly. So why would they shut FB down?
Such bullshit and hypocrisy. No proper argument so just call everyone else a right wing fascist.
 

MayauMiao

Member
I think the one ones who can force people to move from WhatsApp to another chat is Apple. If Apple buys Telegram, bans WhatsApp on iOS, then maybe there is a good chance people will move to Telegram.
 

oagboghi2

Member
I use Telegram. Better than this.

Facebook+Whatsapp is deadly in my country, they are partnered up with the biggest telecom provider so it's even worse for privacy concerns. The Indian Facebook head was even a member of the BJP, the majority right-wing fascist party. They don't treat everyone fairly and refuse to censor right wing voices which call for violence and spread fake news as they know the leading party would shut them down.
"Oh no they don't censor the people I dislike"
 

oagboghi2

Member
Why don't you eff off with that bullshit mister? Do you know about the 2002 riots? PM CARES FUND scam? The farm Bill's issue which are going on? The NRC CAA act? Their IT Cell which spreads lies on Twitter. I can go on and on.
Who said Shiv Sena is good, they are another set of dumbasses. If you don't know about Facebook then read this.


Don't open your mouth if you don't know anything. Use facts or eff off.
Oh no, they allowed anti-muslim rhetoric on a social media site.
Please read that article, would you like if top executive of FB America would be a Democrat?
Ummm....They already are. Do you think their are no democrats on the Facebook board?

giant tech companies are going to have politically connected people on their boards. To them, they see it as a asset.
 
Last edited:

Spoog

Banned
I think the one ones who can force people to move from WhatsApp to another chat is Apple. If Apple buys Telegram, bans WhatsApp on iOS, then maybe there is a good chance people will move to Telegram.

How would Apple benefit from this?
 
Seriously, the best thing everyone can do is to stop being lazy by ditching assistants. Stop asking Google, Alexa, Siri, Facebook/Portal for things. They get activated by the slightest similar-sounding wake words and they record and cache all sorts of shit.

You can live without your fucking smart light bulbs and doorbells.
 

Loki

Count of Concision
What sort of information will be/is being shared with Facebook? Like the actual contents of personal messages/phone calls? If so, doesn't that go against the message Whatsapp displays when initiating a message with someone, which states that the convo is encrypted end-to-end, and no one - not even Whatsapp - can read the messages? Or will that no longer apply with the new update if you accept the new TOS?
 

borborygmus

Member
What sort of information will be/is being shared with Facebook? Like the actual contents of personal messages/phone calls? If so, doesn't that go against the message Whatsapp displays when initiating a message with someone, which states that the convo is encrypted end-to-end, and no one - not even Whatsapp - can read the messages? Or will that no longer apply with the new update if you accept the new TOS?
It should still apply. What's now being collected by Facebook is data like phone numbers in your address book and login/logout and location information. The wording of the privacy policy is ambiguous, but other than the increased scope of data collection, the biggest change here is that this data will now be integrated with Facebook's platform. This paves the way for numerous correlation-based privacy breaches on the Facebook platform for many who never even signed up for Facebook.

On its face, this is concerning, but it is especially egregious in this case because Facebook has been involved politically and has censored certain viewpoints, and it has been involved in several data breaches and related scandals in the past. It's presumed that even though WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook in 2012, it was operated as a separate entity from Facebook, and with this new privacy policy that will no longer be the case with regard to user data collected by the app.

tl;dr: They're collecting more personal data and sharing it with more entities, including Facebook's main platform, which has a terrible track record.
 
Last edited:

Patrick S.

Banned
I got the notification too, but my understanding is that because of European laws, the sharing of data between the services will be much more restricted over here, right? Also, I have a Facebook account, where I write someone a message maybe once per year, and even if I delete Whatsapp or Facebook, my contacts in either will still give my data to services, right? I'm considering deleting one or both, but I'm not sure if it makes sense...
 
Been using Telegram in my friendgroup for lotsa years now, it's pretty great, decent apps for all platforms and good desktop apps and even a terminal app.

Only reason ever to use Whatsapp is because 'the outside world' seems to mainly be on it. I suppose desktop/laptop users would vastly prefer Telegram.

In the end, the people in the network are what matters.
 
The only place I thought my dick pics were safe. Shame.
Nothing is "encrypted" with them. Just saying.

So what happens if you do not have a facebook account?
WhatsApp is a Facebook product. If you use any of their products(Facebook, Instagram, WhatAapp, Oculus) they're gonna get your data one way or another. But only if you provide by using their services.
 
Last edited:

kittoo

Cretinously credulous
Why don't you eff off with that bullshit mister? Do you know about the 2002 riots? PM CARES FUND scam? The farm Bill's issue which are going on? The NRC CAA act? Their IT Cell which spreads lies on Twitter. I can go on and on.
Who said Shiv Sena is good, they are another set of dumbasses. If you don't know about Facebook then read this.


Don't open your mouth if you don't know anything. Use facts or eff off.

You mean the riots that started when Muslim mob burned a whole train full of Hindu pilgrims? Sure I know.
What scam? That the RTI response that was given didnt have info that was not even asked in the original query?
The farm bills that are being opposed by mainly 2 states while rest are oK with it? The same farm bills that Congress itself also wanted to implement in 2008? The same farm bills that are now under SC purview and yet the farmers refuse to engage? Same farm bill that gives more freedom to farmers while keeping MSP?
Whats the issue with CAA/NRC? Apart from bullshit that it will exclude minorities (it wont as long as you have papers, and if you dont then anyway its same for all). And if you have issues that it will allow persecuted minorities from Pakistan and Afghanistan, then you have no heart and care for those poor souls and there is not much one can do about that.

Just listing out random shit doesnt make it right. Every government faces a thousand dissenters everyday, doesnt make the government wrong. You listed bullshit without any explanation or logic behind it. And anyway we started with FB/Twitter being banned and what not in India. What does this list have to do with that? Interesting you tell me to post facts while all you have is a laundry list of random controversies that the government has faced and which have nothing to do with topic at hand anyway.

Finally, so the wall street journal accused the FB head of going easy on hindu groups. And? The WSJ is the purveyor of truth now (we all have seen the left's 'truth' in recent days). At the same time when twitter and FB are full of 'fuck Modi', 'kill Modi'? So that is OK but some Hindu groups are not? You can post crucifix in pee pics and thats OK. You can post nude Hindu deities and thats OK. But when some Hindu group posts something and thats allowed, oh no! All hell has broken lose!

Look fella, its not like my rant is going to change your mind and neither will your bullshit change mine. I am aware of that and you should be too. The point of these replies is to let other people know both sides, who otherwise may only read your post and form an opinion (which also forms part of countering leftist/Islamist bullshit).
 

Jethalal

Banned
Is telegram the most reliable alternative? So i can start spreading the word. There should be an sticky post to make people aware of this.
Privacy wise it is much better than FB or Whatsapp but Signal is better than it .
You can check here :


Telegram is a nice middleground and it has more features than Whatsapp which are relevant to me, lacks Status I think but that has no use for me. It provides 2 gigs of file sharing, quizzes,polls, insane stickers, etc.
 

notseqi

Member
Is telegram the most reliable alternative? So i can start spreading the word. There should be an sticky post to make people aware of this.
There's Threema, Signal, Telegram and Matrix I am checking out. There's probably more but those I mentioned look like viable alternatives, depends on adoption rates.
Telegram seems to be the most widely accepted for now, even my more OpSec-focused mates use it for casual stuff, they have not used WhatsApp so far. It has a good browser integration and is very similar to WhatsApp, there's some cool bot integration for local stuff aswell, similar to IRC but more interactive.

Threema is older than Telegram but with over 900 contacts in my phone I am getting only 10 in Threema, disappointing so far.

Hadn't had the time to go through Signal yet.

I got my raspberry Pi4 in the mail yesterday and will be setting up my own Matrix Server, security is high and you have control.
 

Jethalal

Banned
There's Threema, Signal, Telegram and Matrix I am checking out. There's probably more but those I mentioned look like viable alternatives, depends on adoption rates.
Telegram seems to be the most widely accepted for now, even my more OpSec-focused mates use it for casual stuff, they have not used WhatsApp so far. It has a good browser integration and is very similar to WhatsApp, there's some cool bot integration for local stuff aswell, similar to IRC but more interactive.

Threema is older than Telegram but with over 900 contacts in my phone I am getting only 10 in Threema, disappointing so far.

Hadn't had the time to go through Signal yet.

I got my raspberry Pi4 in the mail yesterday and will be setting up my own Matrix Server, security is high and you have control.
Has a great desktop app which doesn't requires phone to operate too. My favourite feature.
 

Patrick S.

Banned
All my colleagues that are switching or considering to switch are going to Telegram. One of them says he'll stay on Whatsapp because his data is already out there anyway, and he doesn't want another three apps just so people can cry for IT support around the clock. I think I'm agreeing with him and will just stay on Whatsapp.
 

MayauMiao

Member
Bd9BIfE.jpg


 
Last edited:

Anki

Banned
How come nobody recommends viber? In my place everyone is using it.
Only thing i dont like about viber are ads showing between messages, and there is no way to get rid of them.
 

pr0cs

Member
I've enjoyed the morons that I know spam me on Whatsapp saying "DON'T USE WHATSAPP, FACEBOOK WANTS ALL YOUR INFORMATION" then go and continue to post shit stories, spam and other tripe on Facebook. People are so bloody stupid.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
I've enjoyed the morons that I know spam me on Whatsapp saying "DON'T USE WHATSAPP, FACEBOOK WANTS ALL YOUR INFORMATION" then go and continue to post shit stories, spam and other tripe on Facebook. People are so bloody stupid.
It's really dumb.. barely anything changed with WhatsApp either.. they still can't read any of your messages.

But fuck zuck either way; I find the fallout kind of hilarious. Particularly since some of the messenger apps people are moving to are not end to end encrypted lol WhatsApp is far more secure than Telegram.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom