Today, I finally deleted WhatsApp
from AcornTickler@sh.itjust.works to privacy@lemmy.ml on 23 Mar 18:06
https://sh.itjust.works/post/57280235
from AcornTickler@sh.itjust.works to privacy@lemmy.ml on 23 Mar 18:06
https://sh.itjust.works/post/57280235
It has been a long journey.
I have been gradually convincing my family, close relatives and friends to make the switch to Signal for over two years. I am already the “tech support guy” in all my circles so most didn’t really question it. Most of my friends are quite tech-savvy, and some even did use Signal before I talked to them about it.
This also filtered out some “friends” who were never that close to me to begin with. So, that’s a bonus, I guess.
Overall, my recommendation to others interested would be to tell people how much you don’t like Meta’s business model instead of the privacy aspect. I already ditched Facebook and Instagram many years ago, and this helped defend my point a bit better.
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I’ve done it quietly 4y ago, only told some closer relatives. It was kind of funny when relatives I wasn’t talking to told my closer ones that we were keeping in touch on WhatsApp, not even aware I wasn’t in the platform for over 6 months at that point.
Now after years and leaving 2 family groups, politics, and a whole lot of drama behind, I feel it was a great decision, and the only regret was not doing it earlier.
An inspiration. I salute you, sir. I’m attempting the same.
Yeah I made the call a couple months back and it felt really good to be done
Lucky, my social circle’s technologically illiterate AND doesn’t care what happens to their personal data so I’m stuck with both Facebook & WhatsApp :/ One saving grace is that I don’t have either installed on my “main” phone.
Signal’s not great for privacy either tbf - Meta is just a very very low bar to be better than.
Why do you think so? Yeah, it is not anonymous due to requiring a phone number, but all media and metadata are end-to-end encrypted.
Ended up having to do some more digging on Signal as I was under the impression more metadata was getting left unencrypted than there is.
My bigger concerns are with whom Signal employs and the very questionable decisions the company’s made.
Their VP of engineering was at Facebook managing Onavo VPN when that was spying on teenagers using Snapshat. Then, Signal had known their desktop encryption keys were stored in plaintext for six years and only fixed it after public outrage.
To the best of everyone’s knowledge, Signal’s netcode is solid, but leadership with a history in privacy scandals & negligence towards clear privacy holes is very iffy IMO.
Could you be mixing it up with matrix/element, which leaks a lot of metadata.
Signal is way, way better than what you currently have
I’m planning to delete my WhatsApp by the end of the month and have used Watomatic to send an out of office like message during this month saying I’m no longer reading WhatsApp and how to contact me (Signal, Threema, email). Worked great! Pushed some groups I’m on to Signal without me even asking! The beta group function is still a bit buggy. But would definitely recommend.
In my country nowadays you can’t even contact companies and services through regular phone number, you gotta message them on Whatsapp, and I mean, you use Whatsapp to talk with the guy from your neighborhood that fixes roofs to international banking institutions.
Something that needs to be reversed as soon as possible.
In latin america, this is basically impossible. This also covers people who message a lot of people in latin america.
They may technically be able to switch, but most of latin america uses things like whatsapp for official communication.
I feel bad for Europeans or folks who need what’s app. Needing Big Tech that impeds social media into your texting app is insane.
Which Europeans need WhatsApp?
Just deleted it from my phone. Thanks for the reminder.
I envy you. Every person in my country uses WhatsApp and Instagram for communication—from individuals to big corporations—so I’m forced to use them. I hope Meta, Microsoft, and Google get nuked.