This recent Whatsapp privacy policy fiasco has stirred up a lot of reactions/emotions. Many of my connections have told me to leave WA and go to Telegram or Signal. I’m sure you have been told the same. But when I started to ask people ‘What is changing exactly? Why is Telegram safer? What data are they taking from you? Why are you leaving WA and not FB?’ To my surprise, 98% of the people had NO IDEA why they were moving. They were just moving because ‘someone’ told them. or ‘I hate FB’ (but they are still on it somehow!) Or ‘Elon Musk tweeted Signal is better’. Elon has a few marbles missing so isn’t it worth at least doing a few checks yourself? And wouldn’t it be wise to confirm, say, if Elon has a stake in that company also? Isn’t that due diligence 101? (He does not, in case you are interested as Signal is a non profit biz. He is not on the Board either)
So as I homeschool and try to teach my 2 children to ask WHY in order to understand their work, I was mindblown by the fact that adults, many highly educated, didn’t ask questions or understand this new WA policy before moving to another platform. I am not a security expert but I have done a few hours of research and spoken to a few friends in this space and my conclusion is I am staying on WA until I have new/significant information. I have accounts on Telegram and Signal but I had them even before this WA announcement. I work in Tech so trying new alternatives is not new to me. I just rarely used them. Adoption for me even takes time and I’m in tech!
Reasons I am staying
- The people who I talk to the most are on WA. The most important is my mom and getting her to adopt new technology could take years.
- WA is NOT reading my chats so for me, nothing has changed. Yes, they are merging data to create a better, bigger picture of me BUT this is all stuff they know or I think they know already so I am not bothered. eg location, contacts.
- Telegram doesn’t have anything magical that keeps my data 100% safe. In fact, they have some systems in place that are less secure than WA. I am ok to have an account open but I don’t use it anyway so doesn’t matter.
- Google knows WAY more about my life and actually really does scare me but I’m still using Gmail and watching YouTube and now using Google Classrooms (I have no choice!) so WA/FB is really just same shit slightly smaller pile. I am aware of the Big Tech phobia — I just choose to be ok with what they take now because it benefits me in so many other ways.
- All eyes in this field are on every move of FB and WA waiting for them to mess up. Many can’t wait to see the demise of Zuckerberg. I actually feel safer that so many eyes are on them.
- Signal is decent in terms of security measures however, I know only 5 people who are on it. So that in itself is pointless. If adoption increases, I will reconsider.
There is a big fear of Big Tech and misuse of our private data which I understand but I see another equally big issue here. People are NOT reading beyond headlines, NOT understanding and NOT asking questions. I know that we are time poor and trust me on that as I run a tech business and homeschooling 2 primary aged children but lack of time is too easy an excuse to not try and understand things properly. If we don’t continuously ask why, what hope is there for the next generation? We are people who have access to so much free information so why is it that more and more of the population are becoming Sheeple. If we become sheep, then we are really making it too easy for big tech to mess with us.
Staying on or leaving WA to me is not the issue. What I have seen in the last week is a far bigger and scarier issue. It is the rise of Sheeple.
