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I have a related story, WhatsApp permanently banned my account after I refused to give it contacts permission. Longer story: I went to create my first ever Wha

I have a related story, WhatsApp permanently banned my account after I refused to give it contacts permission. Longer story: I went to create my first ever WhatsApp account after I was invited to a friends group chat. I downloaded the Android app but, being aware of Facebook apps' thirst for slurping up all your contacts, I made sure to repeatedly deny contacts permission even though the app was annoyingly insistent that it needed to have it. I only wanted to access this one group chat so I didn't see why it needed it. After maybe 20 minutes in the group chat Whatsapp permanently banned my account. Appeals have been denied. I have now been unsuccesfully trying to convince the group of 30+ people to switch to a different platform so I can participate :(

freehunter 6y ago
If I had to guess I’d say they banned your account for some other reason (doesn’t have to be a good reason, just some other bad reason) because I have the exact same situation (I use WhatsApp for just one group and nothing else and denied access to my contacts) and my account isn’t banned. If they had a policy of banning everyone who doesn’t allow access to contacts, I wouldn’t be allowed back in the chat.
junon 6y ago
Not that Telegram is the most secure thing on the planet, but it has feature parity with Whatsapp for the most part and supports groups perfectly, in my opinion. It's a much easier sell, I think. Plus it's definitely more secure than Whatsapp.