I have absolutely no idea where to post this question.
Along with millions of others, if the reported uptake of Telegram and Signal apps are correct, will there be a concerted mass-delete day?
robzilla
9:14 pm on Jan 17, 2021 (gmt 0)
Most people will continue to use WhatsApp, myself included. The response to these policy changes has very much been overblown, and there's lots of misinformation floating around. Hardly anything changes about one's privacy in the app.
Just because people are downloading Telegram and Signal doesn't mean they're migrating. I expect many will drop them again once they realize most of their contacts are still on WhatsApp, and it's annoying to manage multiple chat apps.
Still, Facebook should have seen this coming. It was all very poorly communicated.
engine
3:49 pm on Jan 19, 2021 (gmt 0)
In part, FB have scored an own-goal with their handling of this update, and the deadline has been withdrawn for the time being, from February 8 to May 15, 2021, giving it and users time to reassess the impact.
It does allow certain data to be shared, such as businesses using the app. In that case, certain data is already shared, such as phone number, phone model data, an IP address, and payment info made over whatsapp. As a reminder, this does not apply in the E.U. (including the UK).
I suspect that the real problem is, in part, a distrust of Facebook.
ronin
6:39 pm on Feb 3, 2021 (gmt 0)
I started looking around for alternatives to WhatsApp when the news broke last month.
I briefly looked at Telegram; my attention was then drawn by Signal which seemed to have more than a few credible recommendations.
However. While reading up more on something I thought quite unrelated this morning - decentralised protocols like IPFS and DAT - I came across the Secure Scuttlebutt (SSB) protocol:
You might not have heard of it (I hadn't) but Scuttlebutt has already been around for half a decade... and it clearly has a dedicated and growing community of users.
Now. I appreciate that anything with a decentralised format is going to feel a whole lot more niche next to the comfortable conventionality of any centralised messaging app (given how most things have worked since the 1990s... forums, messengers, apps).
All the same, I am sorely tempted to seize this opportunity and make 2021 the year when I dip my toe in the water and venture out into the decentralised web...
