In the United States, if your friend group is using FB Messenger, all their messages are* readily pullable by police looking at someone two or three times removed from any one of them without a warrant “investigating” whether someone in their network asked a friend what to do about an unplanned pregnancy.

That's less likely to happen to you in Scandinavia, perhaps since Puritans found it safer to set sail for New England than keep trying to evangelize Vikings.

Also, yes, everyone's perfectly free to use a different messaging app, and in different cohorts everyone does, which suggests it's not Apple's "walled garden" causing these difference.

* This has been true at various times, including times FB has said it isn't true. I did see the WhatsApp founder walk away from a billion dollars over various issues, and stopped using it then too.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/online/social/im-a-sellou...