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Ask HN: Have you accepted the TOS that give FB access to your WhatsApp data?
I noticed that I'm still clicking away the once proposed dialogue of Whatsapp to give all my data away to Facebook.
I have not accepted it and I keep clicking away. And you?
- mikotodomo 5y agoYeah, I accepted it. Why, is there something bad in it?
- junon 5y agoNope. I refuse. It has stopped asking me as of late, though.
- stavros 5y agoSame, I wonder why they stopped.
- unbanned 5y agoImplicit opt-in by continuation of use of the services. You didn't even bother to read it did you?
- stavros 5y agoNo, why would I? I don't read whatever dreck Facebook wants to waste my time with, do you?
- hutzlibu 5y agoYou are using their service. And you know they like it shady, if they can get away with it. And they say, thay update their contract. Sounds like a reason for me, to read what it is about, or stop using it.
- 3np 5y agoAt least in EU, implicit opt-in by use is not recognized and therefore such practice would be illegal. So perhaps they only continue to nag the users they arbitrarily detect as in jurisdictions where it’s legal to hoist new terms like that?
- unbanned 5y agoAnd what. They get a fine. Pay it. And continue to do shady things.
- tasqa 5y agoOh man, I wish they would stop showing the popup every time I exit a chat. When did it stop?
- richardfey 5y agoStill refusing. Can't drop it because my old relatives still use it
- theden 5y agoThey should really have a "don't ask again" button. Is it really opt-in if they ask the user every time they open the app? It feels like it's opt-in by attrition.
- shawnz 5y agoIt's not opt-in and they never claimed such a thing, it is a mandatory update to their terms of service for all users.
- dylan604 5y agoMandatory? If it was mandatory and it was not accepted, then the app should close when the option is declined. Otherwise, cynical me thinks they are doing what they want even without your acceptance. Just because you haven't notified them that you've read the change doesn't mean the change hasn't been implemented.
- shawnz 5y agoI suppose they figured it would cause a lot of upset if they didn't provide a grace period to accept the new terms (and clearly that would have been the case, based on the reaction so far). Consider that people rely on WhatsApp for essential communication with family and colleagues and so on, and they may not have time to properly review the new terms if they were rolled out with no grace period.
- mupuff1234 5y agoIt's crazy to me that it seems like it's basically a legitimate tactic to hope that users accidentally agree to your TOS.
- janto 5y agoI actually find some joy out of repeatedly seeing and rejecting the dialogue.
- AdrianB1 5y agoNo, I uninstalled WhatsApp. I did not have FB installed, ever, so the problem is fully solved.
- znpy 5y agoNever accepted, but they stopped asking lately...
- Gualdrapo 5y agoI actually just tapped that little X before switching to this tab. At this point it just feels like a Placebo.
- ItsBob 5y agoNope, I still click the "X" in the top corner every time I open it. However, I use WhatsApp sparingly - my mum and one friend, that's it. At some point I'll remove it completely.
- rg111 5y agoMigrated completely from WhatsApp to Signal and Telegram. I still run WhatsApp for the people I absolutely have to. For that, I am using an old, and almost bust phone I have from 5 years ago. No spyware on my primary phone.
- Freeboots 5y agoSame, I cant say ive moved completely bc i still have a bunch of people only reachable on whatsapp, but i have a dedicated phone for it
- humpydumpy 5y ago> No spyware on my primary phone. May I ask how you achieved this? I would be interested in that setup, maybe I could then get over the hump and start using signal (though I don't like centralized communication platforms, nor do I like phone numbers as identifiers). Last time I checked, signal required android or ios, so only usable with built-in spyware.
- codethief 5y ago> Last time I checked, signal required android or ios, so only usable with built-in spyware. You might be interested in https://grapheneos.org/ https://grapheneos.org/ . I run it on my primary phone and it works great.
- oneplane 5y agoIf your phone contains a baseband for RF communication, isn't that spyware as well?
- johnflan 5y agoYes, I had to swap to an alternative phone while my phone was been repaired - it seems that it becomes mandatory when moving phone
- odiroot 5y agoI haven't. I also moved WhatsApp into isolated user profile using Island to restrict the access to my data. On top of that changed permissions: no microphone, no file system, no camera access.
- Lewton 5y agoNo, it’s what pushed me to delete WhatsApp
- najqh 5y agoI rejected them for months, but eventually I had to accept them because they wouldn't allow me to keep using the app until I did.
- julenx 5y agoIf you close and re-open the app, eventually the ToS popup doesn't show up and you can keep using the app.
- jonathanstrange 5y agoYes, accidentally. I thought it would stop working if I disagree.
- gefhfff 5y agoNo, I uninstalled it when Facebook acquired WhatsApp. I switched to Telegram, Wire and Threema. When Matrix became viable in 2020, I switched to it. Though, I still have a few contacts remaining at Telegram.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- CraigRood 5y agoI have accepted, but I have locked down all the other permissions in-app such as Contacts, Camera Roll, Location etc. Whilst this certainly won't stop them, I hope it makes some of my data less useful.
- dgellow 5y agoSame, I click it away every time I open the app, maybe once per month.
- setum 5y agoI didn’t all this while, but just yesterday when my toddler was playing with my phone, the pop up opened and it got clicked as my toddler was repeatedly beating on the screen. I guess this was their intention all along by showing repeated pop up windows.
- Wowfunhappy 5y agoI wonder if you could contact support and explain the situation. They can't ignore the fact that the agreement isn't valid if you weren't the one who clicked the button... right?
- jhanschoo 5y agoNo contract is formed in this case, but FB can just stop serving such a person if they don't agree to it, if it's easier for them to do so.
- peanut_worm 5y agoI wonder if the prompt even does anything. I am sure whatsapp servers and facebook servers are like 10 feet from each other .
- axegon_ 5y agoDitched Whatsapp the moment it was bought by Facebook.
- datameta 5y agoYeah, burned it in lieu of Signal immediately. Was shocked how many bright well-read people I know didn't care enough to switch after I presented them with the news.
- axegon_ 5y agoMost people don't care. In all fairness my beef with Facebook is their inability to manage user data in addition to their empire of community driven misinformation empire. With some slightly above average googling skills you can find a ton of my personal data. It's more of a principle thing here. But I agree, signal ftw.
- GranPC 5y agoSignal did not exist when Facebook acquired WhatsApp though, did it?
- resonanttoe 5y agoTextSecure (text) and Redphone (voice) were the precursors to Signal in 2011 through to 2014. The Whatsapp purchase by facebook happened in 2014. But the first official release of Signal was June 2014 (which was just the merger of Redphone and textsecure) *All from Wikipedia correlations and faulty memory :D
- bko 5y agoCan someone give me a simple non-cynical explanation on what the update in terms is about? From my understanding, it only pertains to communications with businesses and give them some Facbeook tools to manage their communications with customers.
- TrianguloY 5y agoNot sure outside Europe, but here last time I checked it basically said that whenever you talk with a business account you are basically talking with Facebook, otherwise nothing else changes. Still will be nice to have another opinion.
- dotancohen 5y agoSo it's like saying "Everything that you say to XYZ business we can listen in on"? Would we accept that from our phone companies? Does the term "business" include governments as well?
- mr_mitm 5y agoYes we would. Since regular phone calls aren't encrypted, not to speak of E2EE, phone companies can listen on all calls. Of course I suspect Meta actually will listen on business calls while traditional phone companies will most likely only do so after a court order, but we put the bar much higher with digital services compared to regular phone calls.
- tsherr 5y agoThat's because there's no monetary reason for the phone company to listen in but Facebook is all about listening and recording.
- dotancohen 5y agoI don't mean "can" as in "technically possible, even if they have no reason to". I mean "can" as in "explicitly invited, with the intention to use the data gathered to try to influence my opinion or viewpoints [1] in the future". [1] Advertising, and maybe political messages
- thih9 5y agoI didn’t for a couple of months and then I changed my phone. When I opened the app for the first time, I could no longer find the option to not accept the terms.
- verytrivial 5y agoYou have accepted.
- thih9 5y agoYes. In case it wasn't clear: after not being able to find the option to not accept the terms (no "X", "skip", "later", or similar), I consciously clicked to accept the terms.
- spot5010 5y agoStill haven’t accepted. Waiting to see how long this lasts, and what will Facebook do about it eventually.
- 3np 5y agoNo, but <~1m ago it stopped popping up... I really hope they didn’t incorrectly register my consent or anything
- verytrivial 5y agoYou have accepted.
- hetspookjee 5y agoI did not see any option to cancel it and want to undo my agreement but unsure how. If anyone could tell me, I'd be very thankful.
- domh 5y agoStill not accepted, muscle memory now to click the "x". It asks me once a week maybe?
- boffinism 5y agoYes, because the update doesn't actually substantially affect my privacy. YMMV.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- BrazzVuvuzela 5y agoI never had either in the first place.
- Karsteski 5y agoI straight up deleted my WhatsApp and Facebook accounts when they announced those plans. Thankfully I was mostly able to move everyone I care about from WhatsApp to Signal. It's been smooth sailing ever since, and I'm step further from having a tech giant control my life.
- yuvadam 5y agoSame, I always nope away from that screen. I wonder how long it will keep going.
- fxtentacle 5y agoI'm just not using Facebook or Whatsapp. Much easier that way :) Also, I have found that the only people who insist on using it and aren't willing to contact me through other means are exactly the people where I was mostly keeping in touch because of social obligations, and not because I actually enjoy talking to them.
- verytrivial 5y agoNever accepted it. Moved to Signal. Didn't install WhatsApp when I upgraded my phone a few months ago. "unfriended" absolutely everyone on Facebook and manually destroyed all my Facebook activities going back to the creation of my account there. Absolutely all of it. The more difficult the process became, the more I realized how coercive they were in welding you into their network. I maintain an empty shell of an account filled with "creative" metadata due to some public groups and clubs that do not have the resources to manage their own presence online. Suffice to say I did not respond well to the TOS change.
- buro9 5y agoDid the same. No longer on any part of Facebook offerings and no apps installed. Banned from my home network too. The only thing left is an empty WhatsApp account with a status telling people to find me on Signal.
- s7r 5y agoYou keep the shell because you're helping those groups maintain their own presence online? I'm looking into non-FB ways to do this, feel free to contact me, would be glad to explore and chat on it
- DitheringIdiot 5y agoWe have a moral obligation to stop using facebook products. Ask yourself where do you draw the line? If you don’t think facebook has crossed it, then you don’t know enough about facebook.
- jeidz 5y agoThat line of thinking would turn us all into the unabomber. Not that that would be a bad thing per se, obviously…
- computerphage 5y agoIt would be bad.
- jeidz 5y agoThe way things are working, the mental health of everybody keeps deteriorating year after year, so what can I say.
- DitheringIdiot 5y agono it wouldn’t. And yes that would be a bad thing.
- tomohawk 5y agoMost people have never heard the actual story of how the unabomber was created: https://quillette.com/2021/09/13/male-grandiose-humiliated/ https://quillette.com/2021/09/13/male-grandiose-humiliated/
- mavhc 5y agoWhat have they done apart from give me a free product?
- fsflover 5y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27714103 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27714103 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26846784 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26846784 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25730388 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25730388 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579498 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579498 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22178917 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22178917
- dry_soup 5y agoI haven't accepted it. Fortunately I don't have to use WhatsApp much.
- GordonS 5y agoNope, I'm still stubbornly dismissing it every time it appears! It's been several months now, I think, and AFAIK nothing bad has happened as a result.
- timdaub 5y agoyes, nothing bad happened for me neither. Everything seems to work as expected. Or maybe, everyone that accepted in the meantime has received a brand new Meta VR headset maybe :D?
- rapnie 5y agoHeadsets? Man, you're behind the curve. We are all floating in our Otherland haptic tanks now, immersed in tactile gel and walking unimaginable rich worlds. Plus we get to entertain The Zuck, our king. Should've accepted that policy. Seriously though, I didn't accept either. Should really set an auto-reply before removing account. Thinking of Watomatic. https://github.com/adeekshith/watomatic https://github.com/adeekshith/watomatic
- eitland 5y agoStopped using it years ago as soon as I could convince everyone to start using Telegram or Signal.
- sgt 5y agoHonestly, I saw some dialog and clicked Accept, despite not reading it. I don't use WhatsApp for anything critical. I use iMessage for that and I have a lot of trust in Apple to do the right thing.
- fsflover 5y ago> and I have a lot of trust in Apple to do the right thing https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28309202 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28309202
- DeathMetal3000 5y agoiMessage could be great except it falls back to SMS when the other phone is Android or there is no data network available. Also you lose the privacy once your messages are backed up to iCloud.
- sgt 5y agoIf they are not on iMessage, you will see that before even sending a message to them. At that point I'll go and see if they have some other means of Instant Messaging like WhatsApp or Telegram.
- Toutouxc 5y agoNope, I just deleted my Facebook and WhatsApp accounts and moved to Signal. My parents, my GF and around 5 friends installed Signal because of me, one friend started calling me instead and the rest... well I guess I wasn't that important to them. Overall I'm much happier now.
- timbaboon 5y agoYeah my gf, granny, and dad are my issue :( so stubborn and refuse to move. Okay granny is technologically unable to really :P
- dmead 5y agoDon't have Facebook or WhatsApp.
- tomerv 5y agoPeople seeing this post are split to 2 groups: - Those who didn't accept the new terms are glad to use the opportunity to virtue-signal. - Those who accepted the new terms are afraid to admit so. I'll bite the bullet: I accepted the terms. If you want more honest opinions, you should probably post an anonymous poll.
- fsflover 5y agoThis is not a poll. The interesting part about this post is why people accept it or what they do in order to not accept it. You did not contribute anything interesting by saying "I accepted the terms".
- InsomniacL 5y agoNobody is talking about how ridiculous it is that none of these messaging apps talk to the other. everyone i know uses whatsapp and nothing else, no real choice until the apps talk to each other.
- glitchcrab 5y agoWhy would WhatsApp ever have this functionality? It would do serious damage to the walled garden which they've so successfully built.
- InsomniacL 5y agoI would argue Facebook are abusing their market dominance by walling out other communication platforms prevent any real choice. I would expect the competition and markets authority to act.
- menomatter 5y agoThose apps are becoming like phone numbers. Can, say Verizon, no allow you to message a friend on at&t?
- meribold 5y agoConversely, it wouldn’t really make sense for Signal to interoperate with apps that don’t offer the same level of privacy.
- dylan604 5y agoEven with E2E, if both platforms offered the same standarized encryption, would this allow for cross-platform messaging? Of course, some mechanism for exchanging of public keys would be needed as well.
- meribold 5y agoI guess not since both platforms use centralized protocols. With the Signal client being FOSS [1] and WhatsApp being proprietary, I also think that me using Signal to message someone on WhatsApp would still downgrade my privacy because I don’t know what the WhatsApp client is really doing with my message. [1] In reality I don’t know that the Signal app on my phone is actually built from the publicly available code.
- cocoapriest 5y agosame here
- larusso 5y agoI was in the lucky situation that I deleted my FB account already years ago. It was the Christmas before the Cambridge analytica Skandal Hit. My fb account was on sleep for 6 month already by that time and I decided to delete it all. I requested a backup of all my data and then hit the delete button. Seven days later roughly after New Years I was gone from FB. I stopped myself from doing a political post before leaving as I didn’t want to come across a person who things is on a moral high ground whatever. Remember it was before the huge data leek which followed a few month later. I have to add that I only got dragged into the FB bubble because of an employment switch. My company had multiple apps on FB and development and testing was easier with a real profile. I was on FB from 2013 to 2017 or so. And I wasn’t the most active in producing content. As of WhatsApp. Refused to install the app even before FB bought it. Lucky me was right for once.
- washadjeffmad 5y agoI immediately closed my WhatsApp account and moved to Telegram, and I urged anyone in my family who wanted me in a group to do the same. They all switched, except my sister who works with people in countries where Whatsapp is the dominant communication platform. I'm still ticked off that Google Allo was the best designed chat app of the past decade and that they thought Messages with RCS features could take its place.
- puyoxyz 5y ago> I'm still ticked off that Google Allo was the best designed chat app of the past decade and that they thought Messages with RCS features could take its place. This. Allo was baller and I used it to chat with basically everyone and then it shut down. Took me years to convince anyone to switch off of WhatsApp after that
- lnauta 5y agoNope. Originally I opted out when it let me (was that 2016?) and when this tos came along I couldn't get some people to switch to signal so decided to see how long it will let me press the x button. Which still works. It seems the pop up has a 24h cooldown for me (EU).
- selfhifive 5y agoThe new TOS didn't really change much for one to one conversation but it exposed the previous TOS when people started comparing clauses and actually read it. I accepted the terms and use WhatsApp if I absolutely have to. No personal stuff there. They still have my metadata but I've tried to give them as little data as possible. No status and no profile photo. No Google drive backups.
- jryb 5y agoI deleted my Facebook account years ago. Friends and family remember to reach out when something important is happening. I'd highly recommend it.
- jbverschoor 5y agoNope.. but it keep nagging every now an then
- grishka 5y agoI wasn't using WhatsApp much anyway, so I just deleted my account. My primary IM services are Telegram and VKontakte. Instagram though... Can't imagine getting off of it anytime soon.
- humpydumpy 5y agoOf course I did not accept the TOS change. I never accepted any TOS from facebook, nor whatsapp. Centralized communication systems are obviously worse than decentralized ones for everybody except the few people profiting from it. So I never signed up to facebook or whatsapp or any other such "service".
- amarant 5y agoStill use WhatsApp because friends, but did not accept the new terms.. Trying to move everyone to signal but there are stragglers....
- SwiftyBug 5y agoMe and pretty much everyone in this thread are in the same situation: we want to leave WhatsApp ASAP but can't because none of our friends use Signal. We should just be each other's friends already.
- amarant 5y agoHey I'm open for new friendships! We just need to get to know eachother! What are your hobbies?
- gerardnll 5y agoI haven’t.
- gerardnll 5y agoI haven’t
- bryanrasmussen 5y agoNo, but I have a family and my wife and kids may often be using my computer, thus it may be that one of them have accepted the terms and thereby everybody's data gets saved. I wonder if Facebook and Google and the rest assume it is just one person they are dealing with or if the algorithms they've trained are smart enough to detect that there is a high chance that particular usage patterns strongly imply an individual user. If so that is to say they have identified profile 1 and profile 2 but have only asked profile 1 for permission and received permission but then continue to store data for profile 1 and 2 and think they are disparate users - would this run afoul of GDPR?
- pigbearpig 5y agoNo, deleted WhatsApp and Moved to Signal.
- arthem 5y agoStill clicking away the once proposed dialogue of Whatsapp to give all my data away to Facebook. I have not accepted it!
- GuB-42 5y agoI am the only one who have accepted here? I am the only one who don't care that much about Facebook knowing stuff about me? I dislike Facebook and use it as little as possible for other reasons, but that some company knows about my favorite brands is low in my list of considerations. I actually care about my privacy, it is just that governments and multinational companies are not my main focus. Too big, too far, at least for someone like me.
- fsflover 5y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29613632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29613632
- AmazingTurtle 5y agoI deleted my facebook account 6 years ago or so and nobody noticed it at all. It's been a platform solely to consume shitposts and stalk others - that's it. Therefore my account deletion went completely unnoticed :) However, unfortunately, I still use WhatsApp to this day - because of convinience.
- beeboop 5y agoYour FB account data likely still exists and they'll likely still join the two
- 65 5y agoMaybe it's just because I don't go one Facebook much at all, but my timeline is like... really really garbage. Unthinkably low quality posts. I've even started getting posts for Facebook marketplace listings from people I'm not even friends with.
- npx13 5y agoGot fed up clicking it away, deleted the app and moved my family to Signal.
- yosito 5y agoUnder duress, yes. There is a multitude of people and groups I wouldn't be able to contact without WhatsApp. For a couple of months I was hoping that the tide would turn to Signal/Telegram, but it just didn't really happen. There is no way I can contact the people I want to contact apart from WhatsApp.
- rlpb 5y agoHere in the UK, I'm protected by the GDPR and by the Consumer Contracts Act. I was coerced into choosing "Agree" (or whatever the button said) without any other practical option (I accidentally touched it when it appeared for the umpteenth time). I haven't given my consent and so they don't have permission to process my personal data except as strictly necessary to provide me with their messaging service. Whether I dismiss the nag prompt every time or just touch "Agree", the legal effect is exactly the same.
- siproprio 5y agoI don't remember having accepted it! Now, I wouldn't be surprised if that data was shared anyway before I'd clicked, and that in the end, Facebook only pretended having given user's the choice! And if Facebook provided me the choice, I would happily revoke my consent.
- Pym 5y agoSame.
- jimkleiber 5y agoI think the question is asking one thing and asserting another: - "have you accepted the TOS?" as the question - "the TOS gives FB access to (all) your WhatsApp data" as the assertion My questions: do you believe that this new TOS gives FB access to my WhatsApp data? If so, to which of my data? All of it? I personally don't believe this TOS gives FB access to all of the communication data I have on WhatsApp, and thus rendering e2ee useless, yet, I'm open to learning how I might be wrong on that.
- throwawayboise 5y agoWhy does anyone believe that FB is not trawling the data anyway? Is there some technical barrier preventing it?
- jimkleiber 5y agothen if we assume they were trawling it anyway (that they're lying about end-to-end encryption), why would this TOS change matter?
- docflabby 5y agoThe only way to opt out is to stop using it - clicking accept/reject will most likely make no difference at all especially given Facebooks past behavior - I believe you can't trust them to honor any "opt-out"... Its my opinion its just a box ticking permission for what they are doing already....
- 34679 5y agoI don't use any Facebook products and haven't for over a decade. It's nice.
- happynacho 5y agoNo, I always dismissed it until they had enough backslash and stopped pushing it. I still use whatsapp tho (along with Telegram)
- names_are_hard 5y agoI derive a small amount of pleasure from clicking the little x every few days. I have no idea if it does anything, and I imagine at some point they'll just decide I've accepted anyway but I have no intention of agreeing willingly. I like to think that somewhere in Facebook's offices there's a dashboard that shows acceptance rate and I'm doing my part to keep that small % of resistance alive. I also stopped sharing my contacts with whatsapp around the time the whole fiasco started.
- inDigiNeous 5y agoNo, removed WhatsApp and all Facebook apps from my phone since then. Using Telegram and Signal instead. Don't want them spying on my phone or my data, at least when using through a browser they can't get so much data. I can use Facebook and Instagram via the browser if needed, although I have not logged into fb from my phone since I updated my phone, just to keep it exclusive to my desktop.
- mikewarot 5y agoNo, I haven't installed WhatsApp, nor any Facebook app/program on my laptop. I always use Facebook via the web, in reverse chronological order. If I suddenly see a stream of old/very interesting stuff, I know I've accidently let the algorithm into my brain, and click on the url again to get back to sanity. https://www.facebook.com/?sk=h_chr https://www.facebook.com/?sk=h_chr
- RamblingCTO 5y agoI didn't have to because I'm German and very happy about that. Fuck FB!
- Molly666 5y ago