EN: Why should I leave WhatsApp? Where to head, and why bother
On January 8th this year, WhatsApp users from all over the globe opened the app to see a full screen warning: a month from then — on February 8th 2021 — the chat app will change the way it shares data with Facebook, the company that since 2014 has owned WhatsApp (alongside Instagram and obviously Instagram Messenger).
As with all messages of this kind, the content is deliberately confusing to interpret. To many of us, it boiled down to “Facebook will gain access to our messages, photos and videos.
Facts and fiction: WhatsApp’s privacy
It’s important to shed some light on what actually changed about the control we have over our data.
What’s going to be shared?
Fiction: WhatsApp will share the content of our conversations with Facebook.
Fact: this change affects exclusively our metadata: when and how often we open the app, what operating system we’re using, which make and model our phone is, our carrier, our battery percentage, the network we’re connected to, contacts list and the contacts we engage with most often.
What does Facebook do with these metadata?
Besides a legitimate use for security (by monitoring behaviours that indicate fake and spam accounts), their main motive is to collect more raw data about us, that make us identifiable and predictable, to show us targeted advertisements.
“And are targeted ads really a bad thing?” — is a question I’d rather answer by the end of this article.
What will change in practice?
Fiction: starting on February 8th, WhatsApp will start sharing these data with Facebook; until then, they don’t have access to it.
Fact: WhatsApp already shares these data with its parent company since 2016, something we agreed to when tapping by the Terms and Conditions nobody ever reads. Nevertheless, these data could only be used for security purposes.
This change that kicks in on the 8th only requires an “OK” from us to join these metadata with digital profile it already has on us.
If the concept doesn’t upset you, think of the last time you saw an ad or something you’ve been thinking or talking about lately, and remember: you didn’t need to type anything on your phones for these platforms to guess what was on your mind. Your phone isn’t listening to everything you do; rather, the algorithm is reading everything you write.
Why change, if everyone’s on WhatsApp already?
Everyone is on WhatsApp because everyone is on WhatsApp and there is no other platform installed on so many people’s phones. A first step to revert this status quo is just to install another app on your phone and see which of your friends are already using it — I suggest Signal. If we’re going to wait for the world to change before we act, we need to act as the change we want to see in the world and kickstart it.
Understandably, the entire world won’t stop using WhatsApp all of a sudden, some can’t stop using it all of a sudden either. What we can do is start new conversations on an alternative chat app whenever possible. WhatsApp will keep existing on our phone until it’s no longer needed (like SMS are still around after becoming a standard for communication two decades ago).
The alternatives
Two platforms have been discussed more and more lately, in alternative to WhatsApp: Telegram and Signal. Both app are very similar to WhatsApp in terms of features and interface.
But when it comes to security and privacy, they drift apart:
Telegram is a private company, with a clear goal of profit. Signal, in contrast, is a non-profit organisation, funded by grants and donations. Being a free service that needs to generate profit, Telegram keeps an eye on the content circulating in the channels it provides. Which takes us to the subject of privacy:
Telegram doesn’t encrypt its 1-to-1 chats by default — so it can read all conversations exchanged in the platform without any effort, besides seeing all photos and videos — and it doesn’t even offer the option to encrypt group chats at all. On the other hand, Signal was the team who developed the open source algorithm used by WhatsApp.
So, for privacy above anything else, Signal is the best platform to replace WhatsApp with.
What can I do now?
Give it a try: install Signal. Check the features out — and notice it’s very similar to WhatsApp.
Prioritise it: When starting a conversation with a friend, check if they’ve got Signal installed and choose it instead of WhatsApp to chat.
Invite: Send this article or others like it to friends and family, and transfer one group chat from WhatsApp to Signal.
A note on “I’ve got nothing to hide”
Many of us have heard or said “But I don’t have anything to hide, what’s the problem with these companies knowing what I do, write or say?” What we don’t usually bear in mind is that the way we consume content in the internet has two gate keepers: Facebook and Google. These two companies show us a filtered, hand-picked version of reality, subtly chosen to keep us using their services.
Facebook — and its news feeds, both on the main platform and on Instagram, where we see content about people, subjects, sports, political parties we like. Controversial matters, that would make us feel uncomfortable, angry, sad, would lead us to use these apps less often and therefore see less ads, generating less profit from us.
Google — being the first place we go to, in order to know everything from restaurant business hours to work-related subjects, future holiday destinations and existential questions. Google’s empire is divided into two realms: platforms intended to show us more ads (Google Search, YouTube, Google Maps and the ad network spread out through millions of websites on the Internet) and the platforms intended to keep us within their property, logged in so that we’re easily identifiable and continue providing them data about what we like and need (Photos, Gmail, Drive, Docs, Calendar, Translate, etc).
What happens in practice is, we only see content that lifts us us: people we like, opinions we agree with, because those are the ones we engage with more, and keep us scrolling for a while more — seeing more ads in between.
There’s a couple concrete consequences to this: first and foremost, these discourse bubbles push us towards the radicalization of social and political speech through the absence of discord that these algorithms promote, by only showing us things we agree with to keep us around.
Secondly, we can’t forget we’re relinquishing control of every piece of information we publish online; this is a demon we can’t trap back in the box again.
And luckily the Portuguese government doesn’t currently have any interest in specific aspects of our lives (like our political leaning, sexual orientation, financial status, etc). In case this status quo changes for the worse, the government can demand these companies give away all the information collected on us, under penalty of no longer being allowed to operate on national territory — as is the case with all Facebook and Google services in China and North Korea, many platforms in Russia, and was actually about to happen to TikTok in the USA if the company hadn’t sold the shares held by Chinese companies to the supermarket chain Walmart.
What’s on the internet is permanently on the internet, forever out of our control. Open source not-for-profit platforms give us an opportunity to maintain some degree of independence from the big companies.
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