6 ms·

Giving More Time for Our Recent Update

69 points by mzs 6y ago

uptown 6y ago
Translation: We're still going to do all the things you're upset about, but we're bleeding users to Signal and we're sure you'll forget about all of this by May, when we'll make the changes gradually to prevent widespread push-back.
- RandomWorker 6y ago
  Signal is having some issues with gaining 40mil users over the course of 4 days. I'm happy we get some time to switch until signal gets its stuff together.
  - ChuckMcM 6y ago
    Yeah, this was a classic success disaster for Signal.
  - southerntofu 6y ago
    It looks like matrix.org is really slow today also, and a bot i used to "bridge" a chan over Jabber/IRC/Matrix is receiving HTTP 429 (too many requests) from matrix.org, although it's only sending a few messages every hour. Could be related? Anyway no problem at all on the Jabber side. Many new people joining all the time and servers cope perfectly (because servers are decentralized but not chatrooms so running a server doesn't require considerable amounts of resources for global s2s consensus).
  - yazaddaruvala 6y ago
    Disclaimer: I am a Signal user, no other affiliation. Please also remember Signal is run on donations: https://signal.org/donate/ https://signal.org/donate/ With the WhatsApp news and many of my friends moving to Signal, I decided to donate $10 to help them scale. I had never donated to Signal before, but Signal has worked so well for me for over a year that it is definitely worth at least the little I donated.
  - znpy 6y ago
    Telegram is working just fine :)
  - nojokes 6y ago
    We can help them https://signal.org/donate/ https://signal.org/donate/
- silentsea90 6y ago
  Yep, typical Zuck doublespeak. Treating users like they're stupid.
focusgroup0 6y ago
MAU must have dropped off a cliff LOL
ville 6y ago
“This update does not expand our ability to share data with Facebook. We’re now moving back the date on which people will be asked to review and accept the terms. No one will have their account suspended or deleted on February 8.” Is there an unbiased analysis somewhere about what actually is changed by the new privacy policy?
- avel 6y ago
  The Verge also claims that not much changed from before: https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/15/22233257/whatsapp-privacy-policy-update-delayed-three-months https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/15/22233257/whatsapp-privacy...
- sumitgt 6y ago
  Yes, I am confused as well. Something has to have changed or else they wouldn't need people to accept new terms right?
- netsharc 6y ago
  As much as I dislike Zuck, I think WhatsApp is being honest about what's happening, if you follow the link on that page to https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/security-and-privacy/about-new-business-features-and-whatsapps-privacy-policy-update https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/security-and-privacy/about-... I.e. it's more about allowing sharing ad viewership data between the platforms (FB, IG, WA). "But WhatsApp has no ads?", well, I guess in February^W March, Zuck's going to pop up on your phone and say "Surprise, motherfucker!". On the topic of businesses, I remember booking a domestic plane ticket in Asia, giving the travel agency my phone number, and getting WhatsApp messages from the agency's business account. I guess there were no concerns about data privacy laws there...
  - dylan604 6y ago
    > well, I guess in February^W March, Zuck's going to pop up on your phone and say "Surprise, motherfucker!". This made me chuckle. I could totally see this becoming a thing, but I'm imagining it like Microsoft's Clippy. You're doing your normal thing using an app, when all of a sudden this caricature of The Zuck pops out of the lower corner and screams "I see you are looking at a post from someone in your friends list. Wouldn't you rather look at this <insert random thing> instead?" The harder/faster you swipe to make him go away the more insistent he gets.
devmunchies 6y ago
they literally chose the worst week of the decade to be strong-handed with users. Now signal and telegram are #1 and #2 on the app store.
xalava 6y ago
I actually wonder if that will help people to move to alternatives before what is perceived as a "privacy wall".
loloquwowndueo 6y ago
Too little, too late. “More time to review the terms” isn’t going to help if I’ve already determined the terms are bullshit. Even my tech-illiterate relatives were spooked by the change and promptly installed telegram so come whichever date WhatsApp stops working without me accepting the terms, I’ll delete its ass and be done with it. Good riddance, been a user since 2009 but this is goodbye :)
- a254613e 6y ago
  What exact terms have changed that are "bullshit"? I see a lot of hate for whatsapp and statement about people switching etc, but nobody can explain what EXACTLY in this privacy policy update has changed to warrant that? From what I can tell absolutely nothing changed for the average users, only those who want to communicate with businesses - but perhaps I'm wrong.
  - levosmetalo 6y ago
    Except you won’t have a choice not to communicate with business. Businesses will communicate with you, based on your data Facebook collects.
    - Spivak 6y ago
      I'm not really sure what the outrage is then? We're providing hosted WhatsApp clients for businesses to use and letting them know if your number is registered on WhatsApp doesn't sound like "end of days abandon ship" nefarious.
      - smolder 6y ago
        Fortunately there are alternatives, so it doesn't have to be a big reason to switch. Facebook buying WhatsApp was enough reason for me to refuse installing it, for no other reason than consolidation of services on that level is dangerous. The internet belonging to a few companies is bad.
  - yorwba 6y ago
ville 6y ago
The statement “This update does not expand our ability to share data with Facebook.” seems to be perhaps carefully worded based on a technicality that they, WhatsApp, are not the ones sharing the business conversations with Facebook, but instead Facebook is giving the businesses themselves tools to share them with FB for ad targeting. From earlier FB announcement (https://about.fb.com/news/2020/10/privacy-matters-whatsapp-business-conversations/ https://about.fb.com/news/2020/10/privacy-matters-whatsapp-b...): “When Facebook acts as a hosting provider to a business, it will use the messages it processes on behalf of and at the instruction of the business. This is an industry standard practice among many companies that offer hosting solutions. While Facebook will not automatically use messages to inform the ads that a user sees, as is always the case, businesses will be able to use chats they receive for their own marketing purposes, which may include advertising on Facebook.”
- jobigoud 6y ago
  > “This update does not expand our ability to share data with Facebook.” Alternatively, the key word could be "expand". If they are already sharing everything they can, there is no further expansion possible.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
agakshat 6y ago
The linked page [1] says that Whatsapp does not share contact list with Facebook. I have a lot of anecdotal evidence which suggests otherwise, where adding new contacts would immediately have them show up in my list of suggested friends on Facebook, even without any mutual friends. My experiences are from >3 years ago, though, after when I stopped using Facebook. [1] https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/security-and-privacy/answering-your-questions-about-whatsapps-privacy-policy https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/security-and-privacy/answer...
- Spivak 6y ago
  I suspect it's something like Facebook knows both your and their phone number, sees a WhatsApp messages between them, and connects the dots. Technically there wasn't any contact sharing.
- curiousgal 6y ago
  I have the same experience but it could be due to those contacts installing Messenger/Facebook and sharing your number with Facebook: Contact has your number and shares it with Facebook. Your Facebook account has your number. The link is made.
  - jobigoud 6y ago
    Ah yes the same link that allowed patients of a psychologist to suddenly know about each other.
- fmajid 6y ago
  They were fined $122M by the EU for doing precisely that 3 years ago. https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/18/15657158/facebook-whatsapp-european-commission-fine-data-sharing https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/18/15657158/facebook-whatsap...
Analemma_ 6y ago
I wonder if this is a wake-up call for Facebook executives re: how completely toxic their brand has become. Every time criticism of Facebook comes up here, a bunch of people handwave it off with “It’s just us HN nerds, 2 billion people don’t care“, but I’m seeing a whole lot of non-tech people fleeing WhatsApp as fast as they can.
- dylan604 6y ago
  All of the other "wake-up" calls were ignored, and it did not slow down their anything. I'm guessing this will just be another notch in their belt of blow back survival.
  - eitland 6y ago
    I've already uninstalled WhatsApp two - three years ago because none of my friends used it anymore. I have Telegram and Signal, that's enough. (I reinstalled it briefly last year and used it for ome conversation with a stubborn guy who refused to install any of Signal or Telegram.) "The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed." - William Gibson
throwaway47634 6y ago
I think if WhatsApp were serious about "we don’t share your contacts with Facebook", they would put it in the privacy policy [1]. As it stands, the policy refers to an FAQ entry [2] which leaves this almost completely open-ended: "The information we share with the other Facebook Companies [...] may include other information identified in the Privacy Policy section entitled ‘Information We Collect’" That is, anything identified as information WhatsApp collects (including contact data) could be shared with Facebook. [1]: https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/updates/privacy-policy https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/updates/privacy-policy [2]: https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/security-and-privacy/what-information-does-whatsapp-share-with-the-facebook-companies https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/security-and-privacy/what-i...
dwb 6y ago
It doesn't matter what they say, or what has technically changed. I fundamentally don't trust Facebook, I won't agree to any terms different to the ones I'm already signed up to, and this has nudged me into completely de-Facebooking my life as I was unhappy with their reach and influence as it was.
lmilcin 6y ago
Sorry, I don't buy it. Your ToS is binding, not your lousy explanation. If you cared for my privacy there wouldn't be need for this change in ToS, would it?
- fmajid 6y ago
  They care about your privacy the way Greenpeace cares about Global Warming: in ensuring it doesn't happen.
Johnny555 6y ago
Wow, I guess enough people really did switch off of WhatsApp to make a difference.
dylan604 6y ago
Why is the abandonment of users for WhatsApp not generating the same kind of death knell articles like the M1 is doing to Intel that we have seen recently? Are there more people with a vested interest in shorting Intel than there are for Facebook? If so many users have switched to Signal in such a short time span that it brought the Signal infrastructure to its knees, you would assume there would by naysayers climbing over each other about the end of WhatsApp. If they are there, they have not made it into my news feeds, yet.
- Ardon 6y ago
  I mean we, as members of the privacy-conscious technically-savvy group of internet users, are concerned. That doesn't provide much data on how many actual end-users are freaked out. It could be that when this is all over WhatsApp isn't too bad off.
wjp3 6y ago
Dropped that app faster than a hot potato. If only I could bail on Instagram... but that was never promised to be securely private.
bla3 6y ago
I wanted to move to Signal for years. This announcement was enough to make all my contacts with me. I'm so glad they tried to pull this off. Good riddance.
zarkov99 6y ago
Hilarious. I guess some types of mis-information warrant corporate attention more than others.
fmajid 6y ago
The exodus must be widespread enough to cause Facebook to panic and backpedal like this. Anecdotally, my 70-something mother-in-law is willfully apathetic about privacy and I remember getting into an argument with her on her use of Whatsapp a few years ago (her take, that I was silly for caring about privacy). Two days ago she asked me what this Signal thing is that all her friends are switching to, and how she can do it as well.
- ossusermivami 6y ago
  I have seen a lot of my non techies friends joining signal lately, the type of friends who spend their days on instagram stories and would not care less about privacy but yet seems like they think that signal is a cool place to be now... It's weird how popularity works... I could give them a $100 to join and they wouldn't even try but for whatever reason since it seems to be cool on signal they are all jumping ship... not complaining tho and actully pretty happy about it.. :)

69 points by mzs 6y ago

Translation: We're still going to do all the things you're upset about, but we're bleeding users to Signal and we're sure you'll forget about all of this by May, when we'll make the changes gradually to prevent widespread push-back.

RandomWorker 6y ago
Signal is having some issues with gaining 40mil users over the course of 4 days. I'm happy we get some time to switch until signal gets its stuff together.
- ChuckMcM 6y ago
  Yeah, this was a classic success disaster for Signal.
- southerntofu 6y ago
  It looks like matrix.org is really slow today also, and a bot i used to "bridge" a chan over Jabber/IRC/Matrix is receiving HTTP 429 (too many requests) from matrix.org, although it's only sending a few messages every hour. Could be related? Anyway no problem at all on the Jabber side. Many new people joining all the time and servers cope perfectly (because servers are decentralized but not chatrooms so running a server doesn't require considerable amounts of resources for global s2s consensus).
- yazaddaruvala 6y ago
  Disclaimer: I am a Signal user, no other affiliation. Please also remember Signal is run on donations: https://signal.org/donate/ https://signal.org/donate/ With the WhatsApp news and many of my friends moving to Signal, I decided to donate $10 to help them scale. I had never donated to Signal before, but Signal has worked so well for me for over a year that it is definitely worth at least the little I donated.
- znpy 6y ago
  Telegram is working just fine :)
- nojokes 6y ago
  We can help them https://signal.org/donate/ https://signal.org/donate/
silentsea90 6y ago
Yep, typical Zuck doublespeak. Treating users like they're stupid.

focusgroup0 6y ago

MAU must have dropped off a cliff LOL

ville 6y ago

“This update does not expand our ability to share data with Facebook. We’re now moving back the date on which people will be asked to review and accept the terms. No one will have their account suspended or deleted on February 8.” Is there an unbiased analysis somewhere about what actually is changed by the new privacy policy?

avel 6y ago
The Verge also claims that not much changed from before: https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/15/22233257/whatsapp-privacy-policy-update-delayed-three-months https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/15/22233257/whatsapp-privacy...
sumitgt 6y ago
Yes, I am confused as well. Something has to have changed or else they wouldn't need people to accept new terms right?
netsharc 6y ago
As much as I dislike Zuck, I think WhatsApp is being honest about what's happening, if you follow the link on that page to https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/security-and-privacy/about-new-business-features-and-whatsapps-privacy-policy-update https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/security-and-privacy/about-... I.e. it's more about allowing sharing ad viewership data between the platforms (FB, IG, WA). "But WhatsApp has no ads?", well, I guess in February^W March, Zuck's going to pop up on your phone and say "Surprise, motherfucker!". On the topic of businesses, I remember booking a domestic plane ticket in Asia, giving the travel agency my phone number, and getting WhatsApp messages from the agency's business account. I guess there were no concerns about data privacy laws there...
- dylan604 6y ago
  > well, I guess in February^W March, Zuck's going to pop up on your phone and say "Surprise, motherfucker!". This made me chuckle. I could totally see this becoming a thing, but I'm imagining it like Microsoft's Clippy. You're doing your normal thing using an app, when all of a sudden this caricature of The Zuck pops out of the lower corner and screams "I see you are looking at a post from someone in your friends list. Wouldn't you rather look at this <insert random thing> instead?" The harder/faster you swipe to make him go away the more insistent he gets.

devmunchies 6y ago

they literally chose the worst week of the decade to be strong-handed with users. Now signal and telegram are #1 and #2 on the app store.

xalava 6y ago

I actually wonder if that will help people to move to alternatives before what is perceived as a "privacy wall".

loloquwowndueo 6y ago

Too little, too late. “More time to review the terms” isn’t going to help if I’ve already determined the terms are bullshit. Even my tech-illiterate relatives were spooked by the change and promptly installed telegram so come whichever date WhatsApp stops working without me accepting the terms, I’ll delete its ass and be done with it. Good riddance, been a user since 2009 but this is goodbye :)

a254613e 6y ago
What exact terms have changed that are "bullshit"? I see a lot of hate for whatsapp and statement about people switching etc, but nobody can explain what EXACTLY in this privacy policy update has changed to warrant that? From what I can tell absolutely nothing changed for the average users, only those who want to communicate with businesses - but perhaps I'm wrong.
- levosmetalo 6y ago
  Except you won’t have a choice not to communicate with business. Businesses will communicate with you, based on your data Facebook collects.
  - Spivak 6y ago
    I'm not really sure what the outrage is then? We're providing hosted WhatsApp clients for businesses to use and letting them know if your number is registered on WhatsApp doesn't sound like "end of days abandon ship" nefarious.
    - smolder 6y ago
      Fortunately there are alternatives, so it doesn't have to be a big reason to switch. Facebook buying WhatsApp was enough reason for me to refuse installing it, for no other reason than consolidation of services on that level is dangerous. The internet belonging to a few companies is bad.
- yorwba 6y ago

ville 6y ago

The statement “This update does not expand our ability to share data with Facebook.” seems to be perhaps carefully worded based on a technicality that they, WhatsApp, are not the ones sharing the business conversations with Facebook, but instead Facebook is giving the businesses themselves tools to share them with FB for ad targeting. From earlier FB announcement (https://about.fb.com/news/2020/10/privacy-matters-whatsapp-business-conversations/ https://about.fb.com/news/2020/10/privacy-matters-whatsapp-b...): “When Facebook acts as a hosting provider to a business, it will use the messages it processes on behalf of and at the instruction of the business. This is an industry standard practice among many companies that offer hosting solutions. While Facebook will not automatically use messages to inform the ads that a user sees, as is always the case, businesses will be able to use chats they receive for their own marketing purposes, which may include advertising on Facebook.”

jobigoud 6y ago
> “This update does not expand our ability to share data with Facebook.” Alternatively, the key word could be "expand". If they are already sharing everything they can, there is no further expansion possible.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

agakshat 6y ago

The linked page [1] says that Whatsapp does not share contact list with Facebook. I have a lot of anecdotal evidence which suggests otherwise, where adding new contacts would immediately have them show up in my list of suggested friends on Facebook, even without any mutual friends. My experiences are from >3 years ago, though, after when I stopped using Facebook. [1] https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/security-and-privacy/answering-your-questions-about-whatsapps-privacy-policy https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/security-and-privacy/answer...

Spivak 6y ago
I suspect it's something like Facebook knows both your and their phone number, sees a WhatsApp messages between them, and connects the dots. Technically there wasn't any contact sharing.
curiousgal 6y ago
I have the same experience but it could be due to those contacts installing Messenger/Facebook and sharing your number with Facebook: Contact has your number and shares it with Facebook. Your Facebook account has your number. The link is made.
- jobigoud 6y ago
  Ah yes the same link that allowed patients of a psychologist to suddenly know about each other.
fmajid 6y ago
They were fined $122M by the EU for doing precisely that 3 years ago. https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/18/15657158/facebook-whatsapp-european-commission-fine-data-sharing https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/18/15657158/facebook-whatsap...

Analemma_ 6y ago

I wonder if this is a wake-up call for Facebook executives re: how completely toxic their brand has become. Every time criticism of Facebook comes up here, a bunch of people handwave it off with “It’s just us HN nerds, 2 billion people don’t care“, but I’m seeing a whole lot of non-tech people fleeing WhatsApp as fast as they can.

dylan604 6y ago
All of the other "wake-up" calls were ignored, and it did not slow down their anything. I'm guessing this will just be another notch in their belt of blow back survival.
- eitland 6y ago
  I've already uninstalled WhatsApp two - three years ago because none of my friends used it anymore. I have Telegram and Signal, that's enough. (I reinstalled it briefly last year and used it for ome conversation with a stubborn guy who refused to install any of Signal or Telegram.) "The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed." - William Gibson

throwaway47634 6y ago

I think if WhatsApp were serious about "we don’t share your contacts with Facebook", they would put it in the privacy policy [1]. As it stands, the policy refers to an FAQ entry [2] which leaves this almost completely open-ended: "The information we share with the other Facebook Companies [...] may include other information identified in the Privacy Policy section entitled ‘Information We Collect’" That is, anything identified as information WhatsApp collects (including contact data) could be shared with Facebook. [1]: https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/updates/privacy-policy https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/updates/privacy-policy [2]: https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/security-and-privacy/what-information-does-whatsapp-share-with-the-facebook-companies https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/security-and-privacy/what-i...

dwb 6y ago

It doesn't matter what they say, or what has technically changed. I fundamentally don't trust Facebook, I won't agree to any terms different to the ones I'm already signed up to, and this has nudged me into completely de-Facebooking my life as I was unhappy with their reach and influence as it was.

lmilcin 6y ago

Sorry, I don't buy it. Your ToS is binding, not your lousy explanation. If you cared for my privacy there wouldn't be need for this change in ToS, would it?

fmajid 6y ago
They care about your privacy the way Greenpeace cares about Global Warming: in ensuring it doesn't happen.

Johnny555 6y ago

Wow, I guess enough people really did switch off of WhatsApp to make a difference.

dylan604 6y ago

Why is the abandonment of users for WhatsApp not generating the same kind of death knell articles like the M1 is doing to Intel that we have seen recently? Are there more people with a vested interest in shorting Intel than there are for Facebook? If so many users have switched to Signal in such a short time span that it brought the Signal infrastructure to its knees, you would assume there would by naysayers climbing over each other about the end of WhatsApp. If they are there, they have not made it into my news feeds, yet.

Ardon 6y ago
I mean we, as members of the privacy-conscious technically-savvy group of internet users, are concerned. That doesn't provide much data on how many actual end-users are freaked out. It could be that when this is all over WhatsApp isn't too bad off.

wjp3 6y ago

Dropped that app faster than a hot potato. If only I could bail on Instagram... but that was never promised to be securely private.

bla3 6y ago

I wanted to move to Signal for years. This announcement was enough to make all my contacts with me. I'm so glad they tried to pull this off. Good riddance.

zarkov99 6y ago

Hilarious. I guess some types of mis-information warrant corporate attention more than others.

fmajid 6y ago

The exodus must be widespread enough to cause Facebook to panic and backpedal like this. Anecdotally, my 70-something mother-in-law is willfully apathetic about privacy and I remember getting into an argument with her on her use of Whatsapp a few years ago (her take, that I was silly for caring about privacy). Two days ago she asked me what this Signal thing is that all her friends are switching to, and how she can do it as well.

ossusermivami 6y ago
I have seen a lot of my non techies friends joining signal lately, the type of friends who spend their days on instagram stories and would not care less about privacy but yet seems like they think that signal is a cool place to be now... It's weird how popularity works... I could give them a $100 to join and they wouldn't even try but for whatever reason since it seems to be cool on signal they are all jumping ship... not complaining tho and actully pretty happy about it.. :)