Hacker News Reader

Comment by ahf8Aithaex7Nai | Hacker News Reader

It's similar for me, but I have WhatsApp on a separate device that's at home and I only use it for WhatsApp. This keeps it strictly isolated from my primary smartphone and the list of contacts on it. Meta still has part of the social graph that surrounds me, but not all of it. How effective that is in the end is of no concern to me. I enjoy not just giving up completely, but resisting within my means. It reminds me a bit of the people who didn't pull their masks up over their noses during the pandemic. That's exactly how we should relate to tech giants if we can't avoid them completely.

View on HN

By continuing to use a problematic messaging app you are feeding its network effect. You give it the blood that keeps it alive, and propagate the privacy issues that it brings. You know that 99% of your contacts will not take any of the measures you take and just deliver entire graphs, with yourself included, to the evil Meta or whomever on a golden plate. How many have a spare smartphone solely for this app? How many will deny it full access to contacts?

Coincidentally, just like not covering the nose with a mask in protest, this half-measure only makes the problem worse.

The only way to affect this is to pull up the mask. Stop the spread. Quit using such an app with explanations, offer alternatives to people seeking to contact you, support legislation that breaks shady business models like that, etc. Sadly, few people have courage to look weird, boring or slightly crazy in this way. (Not unlike people who are afraid to be thought of as ugly if they wear the mask.)

(I have no such problems with WhatsApp, but I’m guilty of the same with regards to Telegram. It’s built intentionally insecure by default: I have literally no contacts who use E2EE chats now, because those are opt-in and so half-assedly implemented—I used to have a couple of “secret chats” but one vanished and another broke so nothing is delivered anymore; we switched to plaintext and I keep postponing quitting the app.)

I see it as a consensus problem, like boycotts or voting.

If enough people join you, it's a win. If not, you've wasted your effort / money / vote / time.

Sometimes it's hard to discern if that critical mass exists.

I don’t see it as just yes-or-no consensus.

How did it start? Some people adopted it, then their friends adopted it, etc. How does it stop? The same way!

If people are made aware and meet resistance (e.g., a person they really want to keep in touch with who doesn’t use that app), things change.

A boycott that does not drive the company out of business is not automatically unsuccessful: more people learn about the issue, some stores might start stocking competitor’s goods, etc. In a functioning system, if a bunch of people voted for the loser the winner would feel the pressure to adjust policies (vs. if no one did and the winner feels righteous enacting the extreme version of the policies you disagree with), and if not well next time more people may support the losing party.

This is a disingenuous argument.

Chat programs are not stores in any typical sense of the word.

Chat programs are effectively clubhouses. Convincing a person that they’ve joined the wrong club, invested time and effort in the wrong club, and should make better and more informed choices in clubs…

Lol. Have you MET a human before?

Good luck and don’t hold your breath.

Chat programs are not stores. That part was responding to the analogy of boycotts and elections.

Chat programs are also not clubs. There is no associated identity. No hardcore WhatsAppers it Telegrammers.

In fact, if you regularly meet actual humans, you might find out that most of them simply don’t care.

You dislike WhatsApp? Give them something equally convenient but that cares about privacy and they will just use it. Refuse to add them on WhatsApp and if you are an interesting person they will install whatever you use, even Signal, to stay in touch.

> This is a disingenuous argument.

Please keep it polite. I don't see how you can know that commentator's intent.

Excellent point! I agree - viewing it as a simply binary issue ignores the role of forces that can get the ball rolling.

Hey, I don't want to argue with you and I wish you all the best. But you are twisting my mask comparison. In my comparison, pulling the mask all the way over your nose means giving in and using WhatsApp without any objections. The comparison is not a moral one but refers to how one behaves to an imperative that does not come from an individual but from a mass of people that surrounds one.

I also think that WhatsApp is evil, but that doesn't change the fact that a lot of communication takes place via this medium. Doing without it altogether has real opportunity costs. In this respect, it's up to each individual to decide whether and how to use it. It's similar to criticism of consumption and capitalism: in the end, you still have to buy your food somewhere and pay for it with money.

Choosing not to interact with people has opportunity costs, but we do it. For example, many of us choose not to interact with people with certain views (political or moral), even if we would gain a whole lot if we did.

I get what you're saying, but realize your response is tone-deaf when the GP comment said that they had to give in to support the elderly and emergency responses in their area during the pandemic.

There's some opportunity cost you just can't accept. If your only two options are a) don't use Whatsapp or b) use Whatsapp to help your elderly neighbors, I'm going to think you're not a good person if you stick to your ideology in this specific case. You can't really start arguing 'what-ifs' because you don't know the details of their situation and the decisions they made, so we should take them at their word that those are the two options they considered.

All to say, the world isn't as black and white as sticking to your guns no matter what. People that want true change would do well to remember that, since a majority of folks do not think along these lines and act with much more simple motivators.

>It reminds me a bit of the people who didn't pull their masks up over their noses during the pandemic.

That's a terrible comparison. One is a selfish moron, the other idealistic.

See

The way I read it was “hmm that’s nice, people are now able to see the lunacy of that period in such a way as to make an off hand comment like that.”

The masks did nothing positive. It was the law of the land in public health that they were useless at preventing respiratory infections before people in positions of power wanted to scare people into compliance with massive overreach of their authority, then it became “mask up.” And once everybody “masked up,” all we got was yet more confirmation that yeah they are pointless in trying to prevent respiratory viral spread. Even if they kinda, sorta worked for that, which they don’t, the costs are still far too high.

All the masks contributed to was oxygen deprivation, micro plastic inhalation, and the degradation of the fabric of society. Think about it, it was bad enough for adults trying interact with faces wrapped up and concealed, “think of the children!”(actual legitimate usage of the phrase, btw) much worse for them having to do the same. People were harassed, assaulted, tased, arrested, for not wearing a “mask,” it was insanity.

Stop being a creepy mask person.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com