WhatsApp will progressively kill features until users accept new privacy policy
androidpolice.com
androidpolice.com
Accounts in WhatsApp have a username, but if you don't enable contact permissions on your phone, they will only display the contact phone number in the conversation list view. The username is there if you click into their profile from the chat, but WhatsApp wants to punish me instead.
They could display the nickname, that could be a nice addition, but anyway removing the contacts permissions is the same as having an empty agenda. WhatsApp isn't degrading or punishing you.
Is that a company-wide policy or just between eg. you and your team? Which country?
EDIT: Just to add, the employer does not have a policy for communications between team members.
I think long ago, Signal used to display phone number just beneath name when you are chatting someone. That always made me a bit uncomfortable. Now they don't do that, only displays name.
Otherwise, I can impersonate anyone with any name and contact image that I want. The way it is set up, you are the only one who has control over the displayed name (with fallback to the phone number). I actually like it that way.
Usability of mobile websites has intentionally been kept worse than that of mobile apps. Probably from not long after smartphones and mobile apps first came to be popular.
Just one example is the local ads service by eBay where the mobile website is usable, but just so much more clumsy than the app.
And all just with the goal of pushing users to the apps because they enable much more valuable data collection.
The lies about malware are the most laughable. Malware ultimately only matters for business usage (if for that). I have seen (non-tech-savvy) people here use Windows PCs with all its software pirated (completely typical here in Iran, and presumably in most of the developing world), and they are just fine. They needed to install some antivirus software before Microsoft upped their game, or their computer would break after some (rather long) time, but installing a (pirated, of all things) antivirus app isn’t that hard. People could just pay the computer retail shops to do it for them for a small fee.
Note that this is still the state of affairs even for most enterprise PCs in Iran. Malware just isn’t that pernicious for end users. Ultimately, WhatsApp itself is nothing but malware. There isn’t much difference between poor users who are forced to use a malware-injected cracked app, and people forced to use a privacy-invasive app like WhatsApp because of network effects.
I've been watching this corporate stupidity train wreck play out over the last few months. Every time I open whatsapp I get an obnoxious dialog urging me to pretty please accept their T&Cs. I click it away because I can. The fact that I can amuses me because it signals a certain amount of despair by Facebook. It's not normal for an app to be usable without accepting the terms and conditions.
The dilemma Facebook has is the very real problem that people are opting to uninstall rather than accept. Their users are angry and disgruntled. Which is why they are allowing people to use the app without accepting the terms and conditions. Which is of course highly unusual. From a legal point of view, until I agree, the old T&Cs apply. Basically they are saying those were actually fine and nothing really changed and it's all cosmetics but bla bla bla could you please accept the new ones anyway. It's a very weird position to take legally.
Either the old T&Cs were fine and there never was a reason to change them or the new ones materially change the old T&Cs and they should just state in plain language why and how. Instead we get this months long weaseling that is no doubt partially inspired by the fact that they are under a lot of scrutiny by authorities in the EU and US for privacy violations, monopolistic tendencies, data leaks, etc. The real issue is that the new T&Cs are of course designed to carve out some legal wiggle room there for Facebook to do user hostile things like ads and tracking. So they are in fact a change and they need users to swallow that.
There's Watomatic. Author claims it doesn't connect to internet even though it has full network access permission, so idk about it. But the code is FOSS. It's on fdroid too.
Hi! Watomatic developer here. The newer version does access internet (Github API) for following reasons: - To show release notes in the app - (in works) To warn users about outdated versions. This is an issue esp in the non Google Play landscape. - (in works) To show recent contributors list in the About section ...
Having access to internet made lots of things easy so thought that was a pragmatic choice :)
Or dont. If it's important enough, they'll find a way to contact you.
I salute everyone here who is able to switch away from WhatsApp. I wish I could dump it as well, but I can't.
Why? I volunteer with a group where one of our main things is to have a small army of people out doing coordinated-but-physically-separated tasks. Everyone has a smartphone of some kind but they're of varying types and quality. We tried using group SMS but that was a disaster, as group-SMS is bad enough but group-SMS-with-30-people is one level below "just fax everybody."
WhatsApp, meanwhile, lets us make daily groups, have a QR code that volunteers can scan at check in to join the day's group, app versions that work on the shittiest Android phone all the way up to the brand newest iPhone. And as a bonus, since almost all of our volunteers have friends and family outside the US, pretty much everybody already has Whatsapp installed and knows how to use it.
The one time our Executive Director tried switching apps, I had to spend an hour talking him out of WeChat, of all things. Point being, we need individual action to pressure our friends and family groups along with regulatory action so that massive platforms can't abuse us like this.
Signal's new groups work much more akin to WhatsApp and maybe I can bring it back up again once the pandemic has fully subsided.
By default Telegram doesn't even do E2EE, you're 100% trusting them not to read your messages unless you start a secret chat. In what objective way could you consider Telegram to be technically more secure than WhatsApp?
Firstly mahnouel didn't write "more secure" but better.
Secondly: if backups are enabled WhatsApp at anyone of the group members then WhatsApp is automatically uploading unencrypted copies of the group chats to Google.
I'd say that brings WhatsApp security for groups down to Telegram level at least.
Thirdly: forcing others to use WhatsApp to be part of the group gives away their group affiliation to Facebook. This might or might not be a problem for you.
When I now meet these people IRL they seem often very happy for being able to break news to me. Not being in the loop added quality to my friendships and I'm also genuinely happy to meet somebody because "it's been ages". Have created the same rule with my partner some years ago and we do not text each other little updates during the day so that we can have "quality time" in the evening which we always look forward to. It felt weird at first because nobody else does this, but it helped us carving out "us time" in which there is always something interesting we can share (e.g. "delayed gratification"[1] is grossly underrated in our time)
Most friends have meanwhile switched to Signal so I'm now more in the loop than 2 years ago. Though I never bring it with me when I leave the house so making an appointment with me and cancelling on last minute will be a problem (one I actively want to have - as strange at it sounds). Also I bring respect to any IRL conversations by _not_ having the chance fiddling with my phone. (I don't demand the same courtesy from my peers but I like tho think as of leading by example). So my mobile is a landline that uses radio :-)
1) It's likely you won't because of 2)
> I only keep it around to deal with people that haven't switched to Signal or Telegram yet.
2) The likeliest moment for that to happen has passed, so that might just not happen. Biggest ancedotal indicator is prevailing usage in age group < 20
I was mostly worried about friends in Asia and Africa, because phonecalls and SMSes will be prohibitively expensive, but my worries were unfounded: north'ard of 90% of my contacts have already migrated to Signal and WhatsApp — about fifty-fifty, as far as I can tell — so out went WhatsApp. No more Facebook apps for me, thanks.
It's unverifiable mud-slinging and your tone was brusque and dismissive.
In your case it is probably because of name-calling.
Personally I usually don't downvote people for asking nicely why something was downvoted (when it isn't totally obvious) even if I know it is against the rules but the the moment name-calling starts any hesitation goes out the window.
the a'os'rophy can al'o in'i'ate pro'nun'i'tion
If you leave out those letters you are omitting the important beginning sounds of each sylible. You generally want to highlight that sound and hide unnecessary characters.
Are you saying that it's pointless to replace the w with an apostrophe because the number of characters doesn't change? If so, this is not how contractions work. The point isn't to reduce the number of characters in writing, the point is to indicate in writing where letters have been omitted in the spoken pronunciation of the contraction.
That is something very common, isnot it?
should have
should've
should ofAre they? For a couple of months now when I try to see my messages I am asked to "Agree" with their terms and there's no way to go past that screen that I can see, other than pressing "Agree".
I'm in a weird position though: I'm an EU citizen with a UK number. So I'm not even sure the GDPR covers me proper. If I understand correctly, under the GDPR I should be given an option to not "Agree" and still continue to my messages.
You gave them the right to change your agreement when you first signed up. Agree or don't agree, in the end they will collect and use your content however they please.
It's also accessible across multiple phones if I decide to use a different phone. I have 2 with different sims and so sometimes, especially when traveling, use the other phone.
It supports groups just fine.
Also I've had almost no issue using it for audio or video calls.
I detest Line, and I detest WhatsApp. I only use them for a few friends who prefer them.
Anyway, i guess this is mostly a rant. But fuck WhatsApp, they actually manage to somehow be worse than Facebook messenger. At least messenger let's you appear offline.
It won't work for calling (as it's not supported on Whatsapp Web), but images and groups (which I use) both work perfectly.
And yeah, it's be forwarded and re-sent through the phone/VM. But this is the best trade-off I've found for dealing with people that refuse to leave WhatsApp. I look accommodating and don't just cut out someone I presumably need to care about, but also limit how much data FB gets.
And while I haven't tested this, I'm now curious how always having WhatsApp Web active affects my "Last Seen" time...
1. https://www.cnet.com/news/whatsapp-to-charge-iphone-users-an...
Then never launch the app again.
Unless there’s been an incident I’m not aware of, all I’m seeing is you claiming that WhatsApp/OWS engineers are lying with the only substantiation being questionable ethical practices of the parent company.
[0] https://scontent.whatsapp.net/v/t39.8562-34/122249142_469857...
They used to have encrypted backups, but at some point in time, the Android backup (and AFAIK the iOS backup as well) dropped encryption. And since 99% or so of users back-up to the cloud, it means that Google and Apple have the unencrypted history for essentially everyone (remember, every message has two sides - they only need one side from each message)
Either way, secure messaging requires care from both sides; even if you both use Signal your counterpart can, say, let some spyware screenshot her jailbroken Android, and then it’s all for nothing. The only way of avoiding that is probably handling communication on a dedicated device, or a thoroughly locked down software ecosystem.
Anecdotally, a couple years ago I lost the entirety of my WhatsApp conversations and contacts after changing phone: I missed the opportunity to enter a code at some point and it got wiped without any way to recover it. I don’t know if that was an indication of backup encryption, but it sure felt like security trumping convenience.
Is this actually the case? I know they say it's not protected by E2EE, but my understanding is:
- images are unencrypted (just like they're accessible on your phone's external storage, where many apps can read them) - the text messages are encrypted, but the key is escrowed with Facebook, who will provide it to anyone who can pass SMS verification
This means that an attacker has to get access to both your Whatsapp account and your Google/Apple account. This isn't a very high hurdle (for governments, this likely just means two subpoenas, and for other attackers, it just means getting access to your phone number through one way or another, because in many cases that will let them hijack most of your accounts), but it seems slightly better than unencrypted.
Google won’t just give it to you - if you want it, you have to impersonate the WhatsApp app.
The local backup on your device is encrypted. Facebook will give it to anyone who can read their SMS message, as long as they also impersonate WhatsApp.
The bottom line is that without much work, google has full access to your data in whichever way they desire, but you only have access through the sanctioned app.
Which means for a state level actor, it’s at most one subpoena and likely they have streamlined that XKeyScore style, so not even that.
Any idea why they do that, instead of applying exactly the same encryption? Also, is there any place where this is documented (where I can point people to that ask me the same question)?
I've seen no credible or verifiable claim that Facebook currently has access to the keys.
That said: credible and preferably verifiable sources are very welcome.
However, depending on your threat model WhatsApp might still be a huge problem, and this is public information so you can verify it for yourself:
If anyone you communicate (or you) enable backups in WhatsApp, any chats that person is part of is uploaded to Google as unencrypted data, i.e. I believe the upload channel is encrypted but it is stored in a way that everyone who can force Google to give them access can read them.
Which means that you group chats might very well be readable to Google and everyone they have to obey without you even knowing.
You can use Watomatic to give these people an auto-reply each time they send you a message, and tell them about the better alternative you prefer to communicate with.
https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/188040/whats-sa...
Honestly after what Signal pulled with hiding their server code for a year to implement mobilcoin and still not releasing some parts of their code, Im fine with WhatsApp
Never mind that Facebook and Google are awful, user-hostile companies and neither Mozilla nor Signal has done anything even close to as bad.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Why does the alternative need to be immaculate in order for you to drop a bad company?
no, it makes the people who recommends the switch (to their non-tech friends) look bad. The majority of people don't care about these sorts of issues regarding privacy or open-ness. "Normies" care about the usability, reliability and speed.
I had convinced a few (non-tech) friends who used to use whatsapp to switch over to Signal. Then signal went down, and they immediately switched back, and that downtime made it look like i made a bad recommendation. Signal also has a bigger spam problems than whatsapp (you get these fake Amazon people trying to spam/phish you on signal, which never happened with whatsapp). I will no longer be trying to get people onto signal, not because i don't like signal (i use it myself with friends that do remain), but alas, whatsapp is still the "main" messaging app.
So in all, the dominance of whatsapp is due to their reliability and momentum - no amount of privacy intrusion is going to change that. So signal needs to up their game, but i fear the opportunity has passed already.
That said, Re: downtime, I've been using Signal for years now with non-techie family, and I've never had any complaints from them outside of that one two-day window. Signal is doing remarkably well even today. It seems like they just failed to adapt to the massive spike in load they had that week.
> Honestly after what Signal pulled with hiding their server code for a year to implement mobilcoin and still not releasing some parts of their code, Im fine with WhatsApp
Is Signal perfect? No. But overall, it's not bad, and if we compare them to the average mobile phone app filled to the brim with dark patterns and tracking to the point where Apple felt the desire to build an entire feature to prevent this, they're almost mother Theresa.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Mother_Teresa
But in this, I'm not so sure he was right. He let his penchant for being contrarian and dislike of religion get the better of him. Not the only time this happened.
Any more reason for this other than a psychological evaluation of Hitchens? He made an argument, you can speak to it. Is it a complicated objection that can't be summarized?
Hitchens not infrequently exaggerated some alleged crimes or misconduct from religious figures unfortunately. He usually had it by the right end of the stick in the general view IMHO, but could be sloppy on details. Classic case of "say something with enough confidence and people will believe you, especially if it confirms their preconceived notion" (in this case, religion=bad).
I totally get why the downtime turned a lot of people off, but that's not what GP identified as what drove them to be "fine with WhatsApp".
I have been using Signal for a long long time, right after they dropped their dual messenger approach. My trust was high in them where I used to bug my contacts to move to Signal.
For me hiding the server code ( parts are still hidden ), adding in mobilcoin, promising an AMA on reddit to explain and then cancelling it has broken trust, 2 day outage with zero explanation and more so I wasted so much tech influence to get people over, only to have them move back has made me meh about Signal. Facebook might have taken a few years to abuse its power, Signal took far less time while pretending to be high n mighty.
Oh and those recent 'facebook ads' scheme. At least be truthful that your account has not blocked because of the ads. If they are so shady about basic things, cant trust em with the big things.
Because of network effects. The status quo have your contacts, so an alternative must be that much better to convince anyone to join.
This along with the parent post, are red flags.
They've also not categorically dismissed F-Droid; just given a list of things they need it to do first. Some of those have been resolved by now, some are unlikely to be any time soon.
To be successful, Whatsapp's replacement, whatever that is, should be perceived as not a huge leap but have the right ingredients for people to naturally switch (think Unix worse-is-better philosophy), or just come with lots of positive, not negative, associations. "X is evil" is just not doing it for a lot of people.
The most resistance I get is "I already use A,B,C".
That's the logic I am reading here
Once upon a time there were IRC and XMPP.
But for whatever reason people stick to silly corporate funded gimmicks.
Support open protocols.
I am really happy that for email we still have SMTP and IMAP. And if my current email provider decides to screw me up I will just jump over to another one in a matter of hours.
There is no added value in signal, imessage, whatsapp, threema, icq, viber, telegram, slack.
All these “apps” want to substitute open protocols the same way google and facebook try to replace world wide web.
If we talk about Signal. I am still not convinced. Yes, they are a 501c3 nonprofit. But what they lack is transparency of decision making process. And their governance model is not clear. In other words there is no guarantee that they won’t irreversibly switch from good to evil.
Now, on protocols. Imagine signal was a protocol similar to smtp or xmpp in the sense that you would not be tied to a specific app or server or company or people. Matrix looks promising in this regard but unfortunately matrix is too complicated and at this level its adoption rate will be even lower than signal’s
So why don’t we put some love into creating a protocol for a secure e2e instant messaging and video conferencing that we would stick to for the next 30-40 years?
That would be a real innovation and value for everyone excluding corps and rotten political regimes.
DIME - Dark Internet Mail Environment
mnm - mnm is not mail (my work)
The vast majority of the population does not know what a communication protocol is. They know whatsapp is a messaging app, their friends are on it, and they can use it to reach them.
If you speak in a language they understand, such as "there are approaches that enable different apps to talk to each other, so you only need 1 instead of a handful", they might get interested.
Another protocol will not help if you don't have an app and a network of users that can compete with whatsapp. As far as I know, whatsapp implements just that for IMs exactly (whisper protocol made by signal) and its still a walled garden.
In this regard, I recall an old advice: if you’re a linux newbie and aren’t sure what linux distribution to choose, choose the one used by your friend/neighbour.
Seriously, is there something so sticky about WhatsApp (other than being a new vector for Facebook to invade your life) that almost any alternative isn't preferable? We block it outright.
Not to mention, the alternatives aren't great. I'm sure others will provide a better breakdown, but at a high level:
- Signal is the best alternative but missing features like crazy that really do matter to "normal" people (can't change your phone number! Stickers only can be added from the desktop app)
- Telegram a) has a poor reputation in my greater social circle b) doesn't actually encrypt by default
- Matrix is simply not accessible to anyone who isn't highly computer literate
1) Download app 2) Sign in
How to use Signal:
1) Download app 2) Sign in
I can't see a single thing WhatsApp or Facebook messenger can do for me that signal can't do better because I simply don't need SoMe on my phone. I need encrypted SMS. Anything more than that is worse than what I already got.
To paraphrase someone young from my family: "Facebook is for old people". So is WhatsApp and Facebook messenger. But of course it's just an anecdote that covers 100% of the people I happen to know. So from my bubble I don't believe for a second that they have a future. Signal might. As encrypted SMS but not otherwise.
[1]: https://silence.im/
edit:
F-droid: https://f-droid.org/packages/org.smssecure.smssecure
Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.smssecure....
Also here for F-droid users: https://f-droid.org/packages/org.smssecure.smssecure
I'm not a Signal user though after giving them several tries, and that decision seems more final by each passing days. I find I disagree too much with how their leadership and organization have behaved in relation to other projects and the direction they continue to take Signal.
Each to their own though.
I don't know anything about the source, but on the bottom left I can see it says "Source: Facebook internal [something]". Various other searches corroborate similar numbers. There are about 80 Million people in Germany, so this is substantial.
It also matches my (anecdotical, yes) experience of pretty much all my friends and family in Germany using WhatsApp, and me having done so as well before I moved to the US. I remember the impetus being that at that time (long before they were acquired by Facebook), SMS were expensive in Germany, but WhatsApp over data was (effectively) "free". I believe this to be the main reason why WhatsApp took hold in many countries, while it didn't so much in others (e.g. the US, where I think individual SMS were always free, but not sure).
Nowadays, some of my folks in Germany at least use Signal or iMessage.
I still pay $0.15 per sms. Ok i'm on a prepaid plan but still, that's ridiculous. And my separate (very slow, but more than good enough for HN, voip etc.) mobile internet only sim is $4/month. Of of course with signal that is effectively almost a flatrate for all calls and texts.
Many I know have basically zero data in their plan as they don't need it for anything so there's no way WhatsApp or FB messenger can be cheaper than SMS. I think the price with only 1gb data and free SMS/MMS is something like $6.
I find that whatever number I call from the "local craiglist" where people sell items, I find them on whatsapp.
Nearby "home depot" accepts orders over whatsapp. I can even send pics for what I want!
Kindergarden - all parents and teachers form a group and communicate there, ask questions, make announcements. Teachers may share pictures what kids are doing.
School classrooms form groups.
...
SMS unfortunately cannot share pics and videos, and location which is sometimes handy and cannot form groups.
So getting out of whatsapp is, well... big inconvenience. No one has even invited me to Signal.
Same here in Wales. We are in the insane situation where local taxpayer-funded bodies such as schools compel people to use foreign, tax-evading commercial services in order to fully participate.
>SMS unfortunately cannot share pics and videos, and location
MMS can. Not only that but it is only old people that use these things according to the younger people I know. Just today I read an article about emojis: It's only for old people. Matches my experience perfectly. These chatsnsill soon die out and be replaced by something different.
I get the feeling from your comment that you are proud of the fact many in India use these awful apps. It's not something to be proud of. You are paying with your privacy and in India that can cause you harm a lot easier than in Denmark.
You answered your own question. And "everyone" does have WhatsApp.
"Everyone" (scare quotes) does have it in Europe. Not having it absolutely draws comment, in a similar way that not having a Facebook account drew comment some years back. And as to why nobody defaults to the lowest common denominator of SMS, WhatsApp is vastly superior to SMS:
-seamless picture, video, and audio messaging - this is always super janky / broken on MMS
-built-in interface to Giphy
-integrated video and voice calling
-group chats (especially this)
These features are optimized for use by a meme-loving, highly social, audio-visually oriented userbase. Posting a reaction gif to a funny group chat thread is 1) vital culture and 2) impossible on SMS. That's why.
Telegram, Signal and Whatsapp have tools for handling tens or hundreds of people in a group. (Telegram more than the others).
Also, everyone here has (near)unlimited data, so using a non-SMS communication tool is free. SMS have either a flat budget (1k SMS per month) or cost per message.
Oh, and sending pictures/videos over plain SMS is just horrible.
probably something like the preferred network to talk to someone or something.
I would have agreed about a year ago, but the reference implementations have been slowly and steadily improving, as have alternative Matrix clients. If I still had contacts who struggled with Element, I might look at (for example) FluffyChat.
Everyone here uses it now, and this include sevearl business and organizations, I heard even some government communication can only be done with Whatsapp, so basically we are stuck with it.
People use either Instagram or WhatsApp to chat.
It's a pandemic. I haven't seen my friends in a year. I want to have the option to talk to them. Due to health risks of my spouse, and due to vaccine delays, I will not see them until autumn.
Blocking Whatsapp may very well amount to cutting off a lot of contacts for me - not that I have many. More social isolation is a high price to pay at this point.
Don't get my wrong though, my soul burns with seething hatred for Whatsapp and Facebook over this. If I'd meet someone working for these companies, I might very well spit in their face. Heck, if any of you work for these companies, shame on you. You are taking advantage of the situation, of people being isolated. And you know it.
But yeah - around these parts, Whatsapp is THE message app everyone uses. And it's sticky. Very much so.
What sucks though is that when you delete your account, WhatsApp doesn’t hide or delete your threads on other people’s phones. That means that people continue to send messages, and don’t realize they aren’t delivered unless they come back to the thread and are tech-clever enough to realize there is only one light grey check-mark, and not two.
I've got a few dozen non-US clients, they loved WhatsApp, after our first Zoom meetings they asked a few times for WhatsApp connect. I mentioned privacy and protecting our respective business interests by moving to Signal. they had near zero issues switching and hardly had any questions. as a tech professional, when we make a recommendation to others who trust us, they just follow. don't abuse the power, fight for the user.
Maybe I should take the time. But I guarantee I'm not the only person feeling this way, and most people will simply avoid Signal if they're doing suspicious stuff that they don't understand.
Yes, Telegram chats aren't E2E encrypted, but they Just Work. You can have the same chat history on your phone, tablet, laptop and desktop without any issues. With beautiful native clients too.
Also the bot feature is killer in my book.
Also when it lands on stable, it will be opt-in. So one need to deliberately switch it on to enable their cryptocurrency.
Their history tells us they go to great lengths to eliminate metadata. Court requests for signal data only get the account creation time and last access time. Please read about how they implemented their gif functionality in such a way as to preserve privacy. Also read about how they preserve your privacy in group chats. I think they are available in their blog. My understanding is that these things are unique to signal and apps like Element Matrix, WhatsApp, wire, telegram, threema, Conversations XMPP etc don't have it.
IMO it's a good idea to read Signal's blog. It can also be subscribed through RSS so you'll get notified about new articles.
And of course, there's no way to go back :(
It is a status signal, but no one buys an iPhone just for iMessage.
> The decision not to fully enforce the deadline seems to be in reaction to the stern stance that the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) in India took against the company. Earlier this year, the ministry filed a counter-affidavit in the high court to prevent WhatsApp from going ahead with the privacy policy update.
This is a problem with Signal as well.
My phone number and my identity is none of their business.
Your encrypted conversations are stuck on the device on which you set them up with no option to change phones, continue a conversation on a desktop, or re-install the app. As a result, most people that communicate with me on Telegram use the standard non-E2EE conversations which makes it about as bad as (if not worse than) WhatsApp, privacy-wise.
I get the idea of avoiding Facebook, but Telegram can see your messages in plain text...
They just want a good UX, nothing more.
We could even make a Peer-to-Peer based thing
I think Facebook has a better bargaining chip with Instagram, it has been their front tier force competing with others.
If I remember right they also adjusted the ToS differently in different parts of the world - presumably they are not going for consent base in EU, so any such argument wouldn't apply anyways.
(EDIT: edited for clarity of the argument being made)
Edit - on my version the wording is "The terms go into effect on May 15, 2021. Please accept these terms to continue using WhatsApp after this date."
The UK transcribed the Regulations into its own law when leaving, because that allows to delay the tedious work of figuring out which rules, if any, should be modified, or eliminated for the UK itself going forward, something that in principle the elected politicians would obviously want a say in but there's always something more important.
The UK had anyway had similar rules prior to even the Directive, in the form of the Data Protection Act. More modern rules change some of the details, but the general thrust has been consistent, you should not have data about people that you don't need, and unless you have some compelling reason not to ask (e.g. detectives obviously won't be telling somebody they're collecting evidence that they sell stolen goods) you must ask permission before you store data about people in the first place, and people have a right to ensure your data about them is correct, which necessarily means they have a right to know what that data is.
The first Act cares too much about exactly how you store data, so that a filing cabinet full of information about people ends up not captured, while an Excel spreadsheet is. In current legislation (and the GDPR) you can't get away that easily. If you write all those records by hand, then shove the piles of paper unsorted, into an old shoebox and put it in a broom closet, then they're not subject to the rules, but they're also now pretty useless to you. The moment you arrange to make them easily accessible so that your business could benefit from having these records at all, they get captured by the rules.
Data protection agencies opinion is you do not need ad consent to view news (media companies argued that way), but it's open for other features.
The GDPR does not contain any clause that someone has to provide a service for free without any kind of tracking. That would basically eliminate Facebook and Google as valid business models. There was such a stipulation in discussion for the e-privacy directive but it was legally half-baked and IIRC it is out of discussion by now.
I have disabled notifications on all apps on my phone (except the phone app), so I think I can live with this for some time.
All the cool people have left...and thus the network effects are gone. I open FB & whatsapp maybe like once a month
Facebook can just go away.
WhatsApp is not useful because it's a good app (even though it is a good messaging app).
It's useful because everyone else has it installed.
Don't need it for myself, but that's where the villains often get you - by putting the pressure on people you care for.
Neither have I, after 15y of OSX I didn't make the jump to the luxury brand.
I have an SMS limit, because after paying 20k of carrier fees over the years I now have the cheapest prepaid setup that is possible.