It does try to manipulate you. It has dark patterns such as nagging for phonebook access, and if you grant and then revoke such access, it hides all your contac

It does try to manipulate you. It has dark patterns such as nagging for phonebook access, and if you grant and then revoke such access, it hides all your contact names (showing number only) until you re-enable phonebook access. They also store your phonebook contents remotely so they can nag non-users to join and reveal you have become a user to anyone in your phonebook. It's not facebook-level or linkedin-level evil but it's definitely manipulative and nasty. The safe way to use it is on a separate device with no contacts.