[HN Gopher] WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with F... ___________________________________________________________________ WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with FB or stop using the app Author : erwinmatijsen Score : 176 points Date : 2021-01-06 20:45 UTC (2 hours ago) (HTM) web link (arstechnica.com) (TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com) | Simulacra wrote: | Sounds like my Oculus paperweight... | jordache wrote: | why not just create a burner FB account? | sneak wrote: | It's no longer a burner if you type in payment details to buy | stuff, it's then linked to your banking identity. | purplecats wrote: | it ceases to be a burner with usage. gaze into the abyss and | the abyss gazes back into you | simonswords82 wrote: | That's a really interesting point. | | I created a new burner FB account (I don't use FB) to go | with my Quest 2. | | I used a fake name and a gmail burner account. | | However I've had to enter my credit card details to make | payments so they have my real name, bank details and | address information. They also know what I'm watching, what | I'm buying etc | | So my question is - do they call me out at some point and | tell me to add a real name or prove my ID. Or do they let | me carry on under my burner account because they can still | profit from me both from my spend on apps/games and by | selling my real data? | wayneftw wrote: | Use a Visa gift card next time. | ve55 wrote: | imo Facebook has enough data that if you want to use it | completely anonymously there is no reasonable way to put | in half of the effort, and even Visa gifts cards won't be | enough. | zizee wrote: | Apparently this is against Facebook's ToS and it risks | account suspension at any time (removing access to anything | you bought in the Oculus store). | | I am thankful that I made the decision early on to use steam | for purchases early on. | LegitShady wrote: | If you've got $200 and a chip in your shoulder, Oculus' | arbitration clause in their user agreement ensures that if you | pay $200, Oculus will pay thousands to handle the arbitration, | and case law so far says they can't "combine" arbitration cases | just because its convenient for them to do so. | | I no longer have an oculus HMD, but Oculus no longer has any | profit from me. | rusabd wrote: | I am hosting rocketchat for majority of communication just for my | family. It has some maintenance overhead but generally works | really well | nickcw wrote: | How about pay $1 / year to opt out of all data sharing? | | I foolishly installed the Facebook app on Android for a while. | When I asked for a data dump from Facebook I was amazed at the | amount of data it had stolen from my phone, including full | contacts list. It sounds like that is exactly what Facebook are | planning with WhatsApp. | | I'd pay $1 / year to opt out of that and be the customer rather | than the product. | noncoml wrote: | If you live in US, the number has to be probably close to | $30/month to match what FB is making out of you | judge2020 wrote: | $1 a year is super low. YouTube values their ads at | approximately $19 a month[0] - FB can't be much less. | | 0: https://YouTube.com/premium | iagovar wrote: | Telegram works fine. | foofoo4u wrote: | I'd like to move my family off of WhatsApp due to these concerns. | I've used Signal before, but I am not a big fan of it. I often | have to re-register my devices to sign in, syncing takes a long | time, and conversations do not persist across devices. I am | perfectly happy using a paid service. Does anyone here think | Discord or Slack would be a suitable replacement? | bigiain wrote: | > or Slack would be a suitable replacement | | Jumping out of the Facebook frypan into the Salesforce fire | doesn't seem to be a particularly winning move... | | (Which also raises the question, whichever alternative you | choose, you probably need to evaluate the risk of Facebook (or | some equally evil corp) acquiring them down the track. I wonder | how likely Discord/Telegram/Signal are to be able to resist | Facebook-sized acquisition offers?) | ObsoleteNerd wrote: | Try Telegram. It's as easy to use as WhatsApp for non-tech | family and friends, yet has all the features you want out of an | IM without too much of the bloat. It has native apps on all | major platforms, and for the techies it has a solid API so you | can do fun stuff like write your own bots. | frereubu wrote: | I'd love to give up WhatsApp, but network effects are key here. I | tried moving my extended family off WhatsApp onto Signal a couple | of years ago and it failed miserably because the app wasn't | nearly as easy to use, and they had all their friends on | Whatsapp. Has anyone here had any success moving a large group of | people onto something like Signal or Telegram? If so, do you have | any tips? | gsich wrote: | Probably depends on you. Do people want stuff from you? If yes | chances are good. | | Don't expect people to uninstall Whatsapp. Having multiple | messengers is fine. | srfvtgb wrote: | Fortunately I don't live in a place where WhatsApp is | completely pervasive. I personally had luck saying "if you want | to contact me use Signal, iMessage or at the very least SMS" | and when people asked why, I would cite Cambridge Analytica. | gotem wrote: | Which turned out to be a bunch of hyped up marketing talk. | Why does every person in SV I know seem to love the narrative | that we're being mind controlled by micro-targeted FB ads, | which to be fair is what I used to believe. | | Everyone on HN switches between "ads don't work and targeting | is BS" to "ads are manipulating our entire country by taking | our data" | Retric wrote: | Not everyone on HN is the same person. So, different people | can believe each without any contradiction. | st1x7 wrote: | Your post says one thing but you must be wrong because | the post above says a different thing. | [deleted] | petersonh wrote: | I had success moving my friend group onto Signal, but that was | a group of young-ish, privacy interested, anti-Facebookers, so | it wasn't much of a hard sell. | nifhel32 wrote: | I moved almost all my friends and family to Telegram. I think | the secret, once I managed to get them to install it, was to | create common groups instead than many one-to-one chats. | | Then they got hooked up, mostly thanks to the huge amount of | high quality stickers. | bigiain wrote: | 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. | paulz_ wrote: | I've moved some group chats to discord and have had pretty good | luck with it so far. | A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: | Sadly, no 6 people was my max and those were my family members. | And my mom still complains Whatsapp was easier.. | [deleted] | Akronymus wrote: | I personally moved to Element/Matrix with a large community. It | works quite well. | stainforth wrote: | Network effects as a emergent principle has been discovered to | violate the promises of capitalist economics. We have a right | to come together and set the limits and terms by which a few | can extract from the many. | netizen-9748 wrote: | Why must there be extraction at all? Even trade seems like it | would be better for the majority of parties involved, | including having the effect of not having a bunch of pissed | off people down the line. | dijit wrote: | I contact the majority of my friends with telegram, the UX is | similar enough and people get on board quite quickly- the | difficult part is convincing someone to install /another/ | messaging app- if they have network effects too then it's a | hard sell. | | But once most people have both it gets easier. | | Signal (UX wise) is not really super great for my family, I | burned a lot of my "technical expert advisor" capital and | reputation by pushing that too hard. | FalconSensei wrote: | I had success at least moving my parents and sister to chat | with me on Telegram. I was having weird issues with Telegram | video call (very low sound on my parent's phones), so I still | had to call them on Whatsapp. Also, didn't find any audio | call option on Telegram, only video call. | ObsoleteNerd wrote: | Another vote for Telegram here. I tried to get at least the | core group of family/friends on Signal or Wire and to their | credit they tried but it never stuck. They loved Telegram so | much that we now have the entire extended family/friends on | it. | frereubu wrote: | Interesting that you had such a different result with | Telegram. I'd prefer to use Signal for privacy reasons, but | like you I burnt a lot of social capital trying to get my | extended family to use it! | bilekas wrote: | IMO telegram has the best feature and usability parity as | Whatsapp.. | | As for converting people who are not that interested, I can | tell you from experience talking about privacy generally | doesn't sell it. | FalconSensei wrote: | People still use facebook/instagram/gmail. If you tell them | whatsapp is linked to facebook, it changes nothing to them... | tpoacher wrote: | Yay! I've been trying to get friends to jump onto telegram for a | while now. Hopefully this might do it! | afrcnc wrote: | DUPLICATE: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25656993 | rohan1024 wrote: | The sooner they take such actions the better it is for everyone | in the long run. Someone somewhere will come up with an | alternative that is better than anything we have today. And sorry | but Signal is not the pinnacle of messaging. | | I like what Matrix is doing but they are far away from becoming | mainstream. Within 2-3 years a new platform will rise and it will | fix flaws of existing messaging apps. This will then be followed | by social media but it might take another 6-7 years to fix that | mess. | upofadown wrote: | >Within 2-3 years a new platform will rise and it will fix | flaws of existing messaging apps. | | And then 2-3 year after that an entirely incompatible platform | will do the same thing... | RHSeeger wrote: | Or, more likely, someone will buy it and screw it up. That's | pretty much par for the course. | CerealFounder wrote: | Curious to all those family power users. What would you want to | see in the next gen WhatsApp? | twobitshifter wrote: | I just installed element today (the new name for riot) It's | interesting and may have some features like rooms that will | build interest outside of just being an IM tool. I do miss the | days of AIM/Jabber/Google Talk/ where everything just worked. | Bringing that experience to phones should be the goal rather | than jumping from service to service. | | My friends from Europe and Brazil are locked into WhatsApp, my | American friends seem to prefer FB messenger. They're really | using 2 versions of the same company's products which are | "incompatible" at this point. Facebook could make them | compatible with one another and with each other only OR they | could do the socially beneficially thing and use an open | protocol. Unless employees at FB push for this, they're likely | to take the former route. | throwaway888abc wrote: | https://signal.org/en/ | anoncake wrote: | https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco... | | Moving to a different walled garden is not a solution. | marricks wrote: | Did they really do this just as the election was being certified? | No one outside of tech will be talking about this for a while... | bilal4hmed wrote: | WhatsApp has such a strong network effect, that a wholesale move | off is very difficult. I asked my immediate family to move to | Signal and they agreed. | | Then came the question - can we talk to people on whatsapp using | signal because friends, aunts, uncles, cousins who live | international all live on whatsapp. Moving your network, their | network and their networks network becomes quite the task. | [deleted] | throwbacktictac wrote: | Naively it seems like the problem that will make progress at | both ends with the right spark. As I image it, soon enough | someone else will have already convinced part of your network | to make the move. | | People, in general, don't have a qualm about installing another | app when it's recommended by someone they trust. | bilal4hmed wrote: | Hopefully, it is however a slow process. In India, whatsapp | is so dominant, I cant imagine what it would take for them to | move to anything else | darau1 wrote: | Uninstalled. Signal is better. | draw_down wrote: | This is good, people should be forced to make these choices | explicitly. And it's Apple that is forcing the matter. | srfvtgb wrote: | A lot of people mention Telegram, as far as I can tell, it's a | worse Signal. What advantages does it have over Signal? | read_if_gay_ wrote: | Depending on your perspective, Signal is actually a worse | Telegram. Telegram has the best UX and feature set ouf of all | messaging apps, and privacy does not outweigh convenience for | the vast majority of people. | _ink_ wrote: | I think the UI is better. Encryption is worse. But I like how | they structured their data centers. They have sprinkled them | into different countries and they claim that servers from | different jurisdictions are necessary to access the data. So if | an agency wants to access it, they have to get warrants from | different countries. With all the war on encryption going on, | e.g. forcing companies to include backdoors, I think this is | the way to go. | himujjal wrote: | 3 years of me and my girlfriend using signal. no problem | whatsoever | | lol. whatsapp | tolbish wrote: | Signal users: How is quality of multi-person video calls? If it's | as good, I wonder why it's still a beta feature. | bilal4hmed wrote: | The quality is good not great. If you are going to compared to | Duo or Facetime, its not there yet. Ill say thats its not a | show stopper though | hyko wrote: | FB owned = FB. Why is that so hard to understand? | DiederikvandenB wrote: | Does this also apply to European customers, given GDPR? | [deleted] | blue_box wrote: | Seems like, no. On their EU Privacy Policy, it says: | | "Today, Facebook does not use your WhatsApp account information | to improve your Facebook product experiences or provide you | more relevant Facebook ad experiences on Facebook." | utf_8x wrote: | European user here - I got the notification today so... I guess | it does? | TrianguloY wrote: | I also got the notification, but it's strange because | WhatsApp in Europe is from WhatsApp Ireland Limited, and | WhatsApp outside is from WhatsApp LLC. They are different | companies with different legal requirements. I've seen some | news stating that these new changes apply only to WhatsApp | LLC, but the notification seem to say otherwise. | | Someone else with more info could explain better? | rusk wrote: | This was the very question I have. Presumably given this | ultimatum they would pull out of the EU market? That's great | that solves the problem of getting my friends and family onto | something else! | svckr wrote: | That's odd. I did not receive any notification yet? Is the | privacy policy country specific? | bilal4hmed wrote: | Im in the US and received it 2 days ago. Im the only one in the | family and amongst my friends to have gotten it | simonswords82 wrote: | I've not had it either. Perhaps it's being rolled out over time | in the run up to 8 Feb switchover? | airstrike wrote: | I'll just leave this here | | https://epic.org/privacy/internet/ftc/whatsapp/ | solnyshok wrote: | ouch. first I thought that it is about FBI, then realized it is | about Facebook. They should merge sometime in future, anyway. | bigiain wrote: | Some argue this has already happened... | utf_8x wrote: | Once again - Signal[0] as an alternative. It's fully Open-Source | (including the backend) and their crypto is public and | independently verified[1][2][3]... | | [0] https://signal.org/en/ | | [1] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_(software)#Encryption_p... | | [2] https://threatpost.com/signal-audit-reveals-protocol- | cryptog... | | [3] https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/1013.pdf [PDF] | sagivo wrote: | How is it compared to telegram? | utf_8x wrote: | IMO it works just as well and unlike Telegram it's actually | credible... The telegram crypto is an absolute disaster and | they have been pretty shady and defensive when asked about it | in the past. Not to mention the back-end is closed-source. | Also, the desktop clients still don't support encryption, | many years after it's been first requested. | seniorivn wrote: | not as good in terms of UI/ux but compared to pgp emails much | simplier ps telegram is no more secure than Whatsapp unless u | use secret chats | hiq wrote: | Better security, worse UX. | Evidlo wrote: | That's just moving from one silo to another though. Users of | centralized services don't have much recourse when the company | pulls the rug out from under them. | andrewchambers wrote: | If the backend is open source then there is recourse. | utf_8x wrote: | True but you have to consider the app needs to be user | friendly to see any real adoption... | | Don't get me wrong, I love Riot (or whatever it's called | these days) but it's just not user-friendly for your average | Joe... | Arainach wrote: | Users want centralized services. Syncing across devices and | shared history are mandatory features, and are basically | impossible to do well in distributed models. | st1x7 wrote: | The problem isn't silos, it's lack of privacy. Signal solves | that problem. | afandian wrote: | Last time I tried to use it it on my android didn't work | without google play services. And they really bury the apk | download, which means it's useless(or heavily discouraged) for | people without a google account. | utf_8x wrote: | The APK is really not that hard to find... | https://signal.org/android/apk/ | | That page also states "Advanced users with special needs can | download the Signal APK directly. Most users should not do | this under normal circumstances." which IMO is a very good | point. Downloading random APKs from the internet is rarely a | good idea... | nowzarifarhad wrote: | That's a dumb move from facebook unless they are planning to buy | every other chat applications and ask their users to share their | data with Facebook. I'm amazed that they are asking for it and | not doing it already. | [deleted] | personlurking wrote: | So, the part below is new, or not new? And what is "user content" | exactly? All messages, images and audio? | | _______ | | >WhatsApp, according to the App Store, reserves the right to | collect: | | Purchases | | Financial information | | Location | | Contacts | | User content | | Identifiers | | Usage data and | | Diagnostics | rpastuszak wrote: | Signal and Telegram seem to be the most commonly mentioned | alternatives here. Which one do you prefer and why? | Barrin92 wrote: | Signal. Open source, non-profit, very good privacy defaults. | Telegram seems even worse than whatsapp to be honest because | they don't even have encryption on by default. | AndriyKunitsyn wrote: | Telegram always has encryption, just no end-to-end encryption | by default. This is a privacy/convenience trade-off. When | chatting about groceries/memes/latest Netflix releases, you | don't really need E2EE that much, and chats without E2EE are | synced to all devices in Telegram, including a fully- | supported desktop app. | post_break wrote: | Telegram because it works across all my devices and so far has | been adopted by friends. Closest to iMessage for any non Apple | device for me. | darau1 wrote: | I would prefer signal, but I use Telegram. Everyone I talk to | likes the feature set, so Signal would seem like a step | backward. | anoncake wrote: | Signal is just another walled garden, making it a no-go for me. | itsnot2020 wrote: | Out of interest, what do you use instead? | bigiain wrote: | Signal, because I have more trust in Moxie that the Telegram | team. | | I have not used Telegram though, so that's not a preference | based on usability, just on trust. | sneak wrote: | Wasn't that Facebook's main promise when they purchased WhatsApp? | | Forget whether or not they can, legally; if I recall correctly | they explicitly promised not to. | | People who work for those without integrity are baffling to me. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-01-06 23:00 UTC)