Will you stick with Whatsapp?

Will you stick with Whatsapp?

  • Yes - I have no concerns/I don't care

    Votes: 380 42.7%

  • Yes - albeit reluctantly/I don't have a choice

    Votes: 259 29.1%

  • No - I will (or have already) moved on

    Votes: 231 26.0%

  • I've never used Whatsapp

    Votes: 4 0.4%

  • Other

    Votes: 16 1.8%
  • Total voters
    890
In a couple of years, Facebook will just buy Telegram and this process will start again...
 
Going to be moving over to Signal. The comments saying they don't have Facebook so they're safe don't understand how it works. You don't need a Facebook account for them to share your data across, they're going to share your data whether you like it or not that's why it says you either accept or stop using WhatsApp. And it's not just Facebook the social media website, it's also whoever they want to share it with.

Mark Zuckerberg is known for using people's private data harmfully, don't quite understand the tolerance I've read thus far besides it being sheer complacency... Which is exactly how they want you. They being any company out to exploit you.
 
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LetsDance said:
You think this was for free? You become the commodity that is sold.
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Exactly, ever since WhatsApp stopped subscriptions and went fully free people should've been concerned. But it seems they're all too drawn into the convenience which is exactly what Mark Zuckerberg wanted.
I know Signal is run by donations, not sure about Telegram.
 
Agent_Smith said:
In a couple of years, Facebook will just buy Telegram and this process will start again...
Click to expand...

Funny though. Telegram has already partnered with payment integrators in other countries. How are they not sharing data?

India seems to be leading this IM banking trend. The banks and other payment providers in India are already leveraging the WhatsApp UPI, or simply WhatsApp Pay. In India, you can transact via Telegram and WhatsApp. Here in SA we are simply using 'chat' banking or, so they called it which is simply a service desk and not a gateway. Now with Facebook Pay the IM banking/payment gateway arena may heat up.

I won't be surprised that Telegram may look into their own native integration...
 
Whatsapp messages and voice calls are encrypted end-to-end. The only data they could possibly harvest is the meta data about who you called and when. They're welcome to that, not worth the effort in changing platforms just for that.
 
Telegram is bankrolled by Pavel Durov, who is basically the Russian version of Mark Zuckerberg.

He seems to be slightly more trustworthy but he's a businessman and he wants to make profit from his assets, i.e. Telegram.

techcrunch.com

Telegram, nearing 500 million users, to begin monetizing the app | TechCrunch

Instant messaging app Telegram is "approaching" 500 million users and plans to generate revenue starting next year to keep the business afloat, its
techcrunch.com techcrunch.com

To me this seems marginally more trustworthy than WhatsApp's current situation but only marginally.

Signal's model of donations seem more trustworthy but I'm not sure how sustainable it'll be. Time will tell.

Threema is not free, you pay R50 up front to buy the app (though there's no ongoing cost). The bulk of their income comes from business customers.

Wickr and Wire have similar business models, they have a limited free offering while focusing mainly on their business customers.
 
Signal installed, messaged those I communicate with most and they have installed it too. Will be keeping WhatsApp for neighborhood group and other randoms.
 
Bewlen said:
As the designated techie in the family, I encouraged the move to Telegram to mother and siblings. I was worried that they might resist the change, but the ease with which they adopted Telegram surprised me. One day later and we are all happily Telegraming away.
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Why Telegram and not Signal? As the techie, you should know that there's issues with Telegram's security claims.
 
People would be surprised how much data collection and tracking goes on in a simple day of Internet usage.

Every website, service and app has everything from advertising trackers to cookie trackers and the list goes on.

Did you search for sneakers in Google?
Wham, visiting other sites start showing you ads about sneakers and various other stores that have it available.

Install Adguard (full, not PlayStore version) and see how much tracking and unknown data transfers occur on your phone. Adguard alone has blocked almost 1GB of data traffic on my phone since Christmas. Its insane.

This WhatsApp issue is a droplet in the whole bucket.
 
newby_investor said:
That's true, but one has to start somewhere.

A step in the right direction.
Click to expand...
There's many things in life which are impossible.
Digital privacy and zero tracking or information sharing is impossible.
 
Still don’t get what the big deal is. Unless you have to watch an ad before replying to a message on WA, people are just overreacting.
 
Sent out broadcasts to all W/A contacts yesterday. Status and Profile Pic changed to:
 

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SpaceIgniter said:
There's many things in life which are impossible.
Digital privacy and zero tracking or information sharing is impossible.
Click to expand...

abzob said:
Still don’t get what the big deal is. Unless you have to watch an ad before replying to a message on WA, people are just overreacting.
Click to expand...

Why bother putting a hat on before you go outside in the winter? Your face is still exposed, so you know you're still going to get cold, right?

I think the important thing to realise is that WhatsApp is now drawing attention to the way that it uses your data. Now people are actually getting the opportunity to choose whether or not they're ok with this.

If you think you are getting good service in exchange for some personal data, then great. No worries. Carry on using.

If you don't like the fact that this data is being collected - now you can actually make an informed decision and take your business elsewhere.
 
newby_investor said:
Why bother putting a hat on before you go outside in the winter? Your face is still exposed, so you know you're still going to get cold, right?

I think the important thing to realise is that WhatsApp is now drawing attention to the way that it uses your data. Now people are actually getting the opportunity to choose whether or not they're ok with this.

If you think you are getting good service in exchange for some personal data, then great. No worries. Carry on using.

If you don't like the fact that this data is being collected - now you can actually make an informed decision and take your business elsewhere.
Click to expand...

Yeah I’m under no illusion that anything I do on my phone is private so I’m not really bothered that they have my “personal data”.
 
One thing to note is that the “information” collected by WhatsApp is not chats, since those are encrypted and therefore can’t be seen by the company even if it wanted to. Rather, the information is personal data such as the phone number of users and their contacts, profile names and pictures, and diagnostic data.


As such, there is no concern – at least yet – that private WhatsApp conversations will be harvested to use for ads or other purposes by Facebook, for instance.
Click to expand...

Like I said, seems to be an overreaction. IMO.
 
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