I disagree with your premise.

Whatsapp wasn't always owned by FB/Meta. It had a huge user base then got bought out.

Alternatives like Signal are popular, but it's hard to overcome inertia. Give them time.

I would rather say "Give time to decentralisation". It slowly became a standard. If more people abandon abusive software.

Another way of thinking of it is that the value that Meta/Mastercard/Virgin/other companies that fit that description provide is so substantial that they have become intertwined with society.

The reality is likely somewhere in the middle IMO

how's that working out?

asking for a friend who thinks that for-profit healthcare was a step in the wrong direction.

> for-profit healthcare was a step in the wrong direction.

Using the words "for-profit healthcare" is a distraction from the topic.

GP's have been private since the beginning of the NHS, they're the definition of for-profit healthcare.

On the flip side, Virgin operates many of the major healthcare provdiers as an NHS service provider. I'm not saying that they're incredible, but they're doing it.

The option isn't "public", it's public and sustained funding and investment. Given the govenment of the last decade in the UK, I'm not convinced the situation would be any better if the NHS was more public than it is.

Oligopoly.

Or they won't and you will be left out of things.

Not even out of malice! Obviously your closest friend and family will adapt and keep you in the loop. Bigger looser groups are more dubious. I'm a member of a book club for example. There are of course the scheduled meets, organised well in advance. But also sometimes someone just feels like hanging and posts a message on a whatsapp group that they will be at this or that location and whoever is free is welcome to join. Schedules don't always permit it, but when it works out it is fun!

Now of course if someone from the group so want to meet with specifically you/me they will remember to send a one-on-one message, but there is a power in the broadcast nature of some of these things for organisation.

It only works reliable for messages directly addressed to a person. Then people remember, oh he does not have WhatsApp. I will tell him via signal.

That's a big leap of faith.

If I leave these, people are not going to reach out to me about them. I will just cast myself as an outsider and will be left out of the loop.

I've encountered this everywhere, even with myself. I'm bad at keeping in touch to begin with. Anyone decided not to use normal means to communicate with me are likely to get missed among the hundred plus other people I know.

I'm not on Facebook, so I'm left out of the majority of my family's communication. The only reason I know anything is I regularly call my parents to get the summary. (It's also a good excuse to call. We always have something to talk about.)

My company asked me to install WhatsApp once, but I explained to them why I don't use it, and they didn't have a problem with it. Sometimes, all people need to know is 'no' and most of the time they don't even need an explanation.

So it's not FOMO, it's just plain MO.

Missing out on conversations from my extended family, friends (only about 1/4 use Signal and all groups are on WhatsApp), work (the Health Service in Ireland literally runs on WhatsApp), voluntary undertakings (all of which are organised on WhatsApp), organising stuff for the kids (again all on WhatsApp).

So it's a valid fear based on the reality in my social circle and country. Unilaterally moving to Signal means self-imposed isolation.

This part is terrifying: does Ireland not have the equivalent of HSR (UK, in combination with a patchwork of other legislation) or HIPAA?

I think you might also be surprised by the level of WhatsApp use in the NHS. It's far more common in actual use than Pando or Teams.

In 2021, when nearly the entire HSE IT system went down due to a cyberattack (including HSE email), literally the entire service ran on WhatsApp and taxis filled with paper records driving around.

What do you mean? I live in Ireland and no health professional has ever contacted me via WhatsApp.

You just get added to the relevant groups by your manager (obviously there's also unofficial social groups) and that's where you'll get 90%+ of rosters, clinical updates, service bulletins, etc.

Maybe some won't be, but the path of idealism isn't always the most convenient.

"Sorry kids, you aren't going to your friends parties or playing sports with them because my ideals conflict with your reality" is not a tenable position.

"your mileage may vary"

and bob's your aunty

Yeah, definitely. I'm just responsible for myself. The day I have to be responsible for others, I'll just immigrate to a country where everybody uses Telegram haha.

Telegram is a much better option that does not sell your user data and still has the best privacy options. Where most people like to disagree is the security part, but E2EE is not as important to me as long as my privacy is respected.

Signal is horrible to use and inconvenient for most people but with e2ee.

Even after making the effort to keep up with the ones that only wanted to use WhatsApps, through email or regular text message, they couldn't be bothered. I guess I have moved into the point in my life where I prefer the quality of friends who wanted me around for more than being an extra body to fill out their party guest list (and similar).

most informal social groups, parents included, now communicate mainly on whatsapp. You can naturally say no (i did) but then your kid is left out of most social events unless you're actively syncing with other parents every week to be in the loop (which is what i do and it's excruciating).

Whatsapp as a platform is extremely convenient, which is why other people will have a hard time understanding your reluctance to adhere, it's not uncommon to be seen as eccentric.

so again, congratulations on finding a great company, but there are real issues with the general social dependence on a single invasive platform.

Some didn't like it at first, but thankfully most of them now love Telegram. I have a “My way or the highway” kinda attitude when it comes to WhatsApp, it has certainly caused problems once or twice, but I'm very firm on my stance against Facebook apps.

- Privacy controls for each user.

- No hard requirement for a phone number.

- Cloud encryption.

- Open Source clients.

- Telegram's track record.

- Business model not revolving around selling user data.

WhatsApp is a black box and nobody has any good arguments for it other than 'supposed' E2EE that nobody knows anything about. The fact that WhatsApp's T&C forbid you from even reverse engineering the obfuscated binaries and Facebook being the force behind WhatsApp, I'm still surprised that people take their E2EE claim seriously.

It's like me promising you that I'm not looking at you, while I stand facing you, right behind you.

Only if you pay

> - Open Source clients.

Matrix/WhatsApp

> - Telegram's track record

Which is?

> WhatsApp is a black box and nobody has any good arguments for it other than 'supposed' E2EE that nobody knows anything about.

With Telegram you have a guarantee that it is not E2EE in group chats and single chats if you don't opt into a way worse UX/features.

I'm sorry, but that's not a good example. It doesn't even count as a legitimate client.

> Which is?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_of_Telegram_in_Russia

https://hongkongfp.com/2020/07/05/exclusive-telegram-to-temp...

https://www.vice.com/en/article/a3yavb/russia-blocks-telegra...

https://sensortower.com/blog/hong-kong-protests-app-download...

> With Telegram you have a guarantee that it is not E2EE in group chats and single chats if you don't opt into a way worse UX/features.

You're saying this as if you have a guarantee that WhatsApp's E2EE is 100% correct. At least with Telegram, I know what data the app is collecting, where it's going and how it's being stored on the device.

> True for Whatsapp as well, it's funded by business accounts and perhaps other parts of facebook

Assumption again.

why not? After all the client uses the multi-device API like the official client does

> You're saying this as if you have a guarantee that WhatsApp's E2EE is 100% correct.

I am not saying it like that. I am explicitly saying that with Telegram you have the guarantee that it is not E2EE, while there at least exist the possibility of WhatsApp being E2EE.

> Assumption again.

An observation, not assumption. WhatsApp wants to see money for business accounts: https://business.whatsapp.com/products/platform-pricing

Telegram on the other hand does not compromise on features and user experience and still is able to deliver a system that doesn't disrespect the user data.

I don't have special insight into either WhatsApp or Telegram, but I think given the founders and jurisdictions in which they operate, Telegram deserves at least the same level of scepticism and scrutiny as TikTok.

I don't think Telegram deserves scrutiny. Not after what they've been able to accomplish and follow.

> indeed it was _suggested_ by many of them, both technical and non-technical as preferable to SMS, so I don't think it can be that bad.

It's not bad of course, but it's extremely hard to get WhatsApp users to switch to Signal than Telegram. Both because of missing WhatsApp features in Signal and the additional hoops like PIN.

I'm Just speaking from personal experience. Signal was also my first choice.

Every communication channel deserves scrutiny according to the threat model of a given user.

Telegram is a good compromise. Yeah it's not e2ee.

Signal isn't even a good compromise for most people. I don't know anyone who has stuck with signal in my circles. They've nearly all reverted back their previous service or find a new one.

Personally I treat everything that is sent over networks as public data. So I would never comm anything that needed e2ee via a message service full stop.

That does not sound like a good compromise to me.

I wouldn't use a messaging app to send encrypted content in the first place. But I do want trusted privacy control which telegram provides

Their track record is excellent. Pavel moved away from Russia (and his team of 20 something members too!) only because the Russian government pressured them into giving access to their servers.

WhatsApp is anything but privacy preserving. You have 0 transparency. You can't even prove if the E2EE exists for 100% of the time or just 50% of the time because the binaries are obfuscated. On top of that, their privacy policy and being owned by Facebook says everything one needs to know.

Telegram, IMHO, is the only app that does not compromise on user experience and still provides fantastic privacy control and respects the user data. Sure, it's not E2EE, but no E2EE app can ever do what Telegram is doing at this scale.

In the US, I don't have Telegram and it's been ages since I sent a message on WhatsApp. Everyone I know just uses SMS.

But as op mentioned

> kids' sports activities and parent groups

Try telling your kids football team coach that you object to Whatsapp and your kids friends' parents that you will not join Facebook for privacy reasons, it's a much harder ask, they might say fine, but you can't expect other people to change their behavior based on your beliefs. No matter how right you are.

"I can't because my Facebook got hacked, and I got banned from Facebook. I tried multiple time to recreate an account but it was banned each time :('

IANAL but if this is on your personal device they can't compel you to do so. Otherwise they need to provide a company issued device.

Stop associating with clueless people

Everytime I've tried moving people over to Signal/Telegram, etc. we try it for a week and then go back to WhatApp because of so many other groups on there....

Ha!

I so don't trust Meta.

I wouldn't put it past them to double encrypt your messages and split it off at the server.

Edit: Clarification: Encrypt your plaintext twice, append it, split it off at the server. Send your message on to recipient and decrypt it themselves for their processing enjoyment.

After seeing the lengths various govts will go to for full text access, I highly doubt it. There is also no way to reliably prove the e2ee claims of WA, so I would remain skeptical.

I'm not on Meta side on this but I actually don't use a lot of services that I'd like to and have real inconveniences because a certain level of privacy is actually important to me.

> all of my kids' sports activities and parent groups

I thought you were going to followup with some anti-dictatorship or something. not parent groups lol.

And before anyone says "Well, sucks to not know basic tech stuff", consider the fact that in a world where no-one has privacy, the person using Facebook from a VM is eminently more trackable than in a world where privacy is enforced globally.

> Privacy is a human right, not a technologically-advanced-person right

Yeah I suppose it is, but I'm starting to give up on the idea because all the people who whinge here on HN and elsewhere about privacy won't actually do anything about it, like give up exactly the things that they are willing to pour their life's details into. TL;DR people have to put some effort into securing their privacy and >95% of people won't.

Stop blaming the companies for stealing your privacy when you're giving it away willingly.

Similarly, governments can and have pushed for privacy regulations. Not all of it has been successful, but we’re at the first wave of these efforts.

If people actually cared enough to do something this would be solved very quickly indeed but they don't.

> governments can and have pushed for privacy regulations.

Depends. The EU has done not badly at all on this, the American government on the other hand…

FB would be hurt so much more by this than EU users (market bigger than US, and other countries would follow), especially long term that they will quickly reconsider their uber-arrogant behavior. Really, who the f*k do they think they are, just another greedy corp run by sociopathic a-holes that will sooner or later be just part of history.

Remember when they got the biggest fine ever, like 5B (EUR or USD can't remember) and the moment this decision was made public the stock went up as traders had thought the fine is even bigger.

> They are legally required to keep EU users' data in the EU anyway.

It's not about what you are legally required to do, it's about what happens in practice when you don't. In this case, not much happens, so why would they bother complying?

It's not feasible to ask everyone to even understand how to do that.

> yet most sites still attempt to load FB tracking scripts.

(Emphasis mine)

So yes, they do, and all that's irrelevant victim blaming because it's really unacceptable that this is something the user should have to bother with. It also requires an unusually high level of technical competence just to not get stalked, which is likewise unreasonable.

I do not use any of facebook's apps or websites

But from what I can see from DuckDuckGo App tracking protection multiple apps load Facebook trackers. Basically there is no escaping facebook even if you don't touch any of their apps.

But how many are tech savy enough to have a separate device and run Aguard / Pi Hole all the time for privacy.

If you want privacy, seek it out, refuse those that take it from you. Incuding Meta.

> The right to privacy or private life is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

https://edps.europa.eu/data-protection/data-protection_en#:~....

The violations of these are not the responsibility of the victim. In this case they are the responsibility of Meta.

You seem to be talking about it more in line with if it was a privilege and not a right. Consider a passport, its a privilege and indeed not a right to get one. So you need to seek it out.

Rights however are not sought out, or require some kind of process to achieve them. They're available from birth.

These rights are written down and the law of the land.

Facebook is not required to provide their services for free.

And providers of toilets are not allowed to secretly film you and share those films, even if they make the toilets free.