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Tell HN: WhatsApp appears to be censoring references to Signal

140 points by DicIfTEx 4y ago

I don't usually go in for conspiracy theories, but this one seems pretty clear-cut and I can't see anyone else discussing it online: WhatsApp appears to be selectively censoring references to Signal. Specifically, I had changed my profile picture on WhatsApp to the Signal logo and my ‘About’ text to ‘Message me on Signal - https://signal.org/download/’. However, I noticed recently (after someone happened to open their WhatsApp in front of me and I saw their chat with me) that my WhatsApp contacts are seeing my profile picture and my ‘About’ text as blank. I've checked and this seems to be the case for all of my WhatsApp contacts. See screenshots from me and my friend's phones here: https://imgur.com/a/qvEsswW On the bright side, this serves as an ideal demo for convincing anyone who doesn't understand why I am trying to migrate them over to Signal. So, I guess, thanks Meta?

nonasktell 4y ago
Have you checked your privacy settings? They may also automatically shadowblock famous companies logos to prevent phishing/scamming
c7b 4y ago
Have you tried a few other images / descriptions to confirm that it is indeed only Signal that's not being shown?
arran-nz 4y ago
Okay, this is interesting. My WhatsApp profile has been dormant for almost 2 years. Before uninstalling the app, like you, I changed my profile picture to the Signal logo and wrote a similar about section. My friend just checked my profile, the profile photo was shown briefly before being removed - The about section is also blank.
- veeti 4y ago
  Devil's advocate, could there be some sort of inactivity timeout for a profile being removed? Your friend's device could have had it cached and then refreshed.
yieldcrv 4y ago
In your screenshots its not clear what the expected behavior is supposed to be There are different OS’ from mine and different views Can you label and also show the expected behavior?
Pabloski80 4y ago
As for text, be creative with leetspeak and diacritics or Unicode and other funny characters. As for image it shall be easier. Try out a few filters after which the Meth RoboCop will give up. This one is roughly comparable to uncrackable so far caotcha problem.
Calvin02 4y ago
Seems to be working for me. My profile photo is set to “My Contacts” and I was able to view the Signal logo on my wife’s WA account. Both of us are on the latest iOS version.
Spare_account 4y ago
My 'Status' message on WhatsApp has been "Let's switch to Signal: https://signal.org/install https://signal.org/install" since January 2021 and I've checked periodically (including just now) and it is visible on other people's devices. My profile picture is my own face, though. Perhaps, as other people have said, the restriction being applied by WhatsApp is related to your choice of image more than the text? Screenshot: https://imgur.com/5c1rQyM https://imgur.com/5c1rQyM
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Yoric 4y ago
My theory: in the past, malicious actors have created WhatsApp users who pretended to be Microsoft tech support (or similar) for phishing purposes and used official logos and URLs as their profile pictures to make the impersonation (slightly) more believable. WhatsApp T&S team now detects what you're doing as a likely phishing attempt and deactivates it silently.
ayhanfuat 4y ago
They’ve been doing something similar for Telegram for a long time: https://twitter.com/durov/status/671357796730834945 https://twitter.com/durov/status/671357796730834945
rvz 4y ago
> I don't usually go in for conspiracy theories I thought HN didn't like 'conspiracy theories'? Or is it that they are only acceptable if its for either things that most HNers use, or there is a villain to scream at like Meta, Big Tech, Elon Musk, etc I guess? Either way, seems like an interesting one, if true that is.
- spoils19 4y ago
  - jbverschoor 4y ago
    Soo how is this true and other things aren’t?
dheera 4y ago
It's Meta. They censor stuff. If I post Youtube videos on Facebook they usually get covertly censored (i.e. I can see it bu my friends can't see it on their feeds). It doesn't happen if I post the video directly to Facebook. Though once when I posted a video of me playing Beethoven on Facebook they censored out the audio because their idiot ML thought it was copyrighted music. I posted a link of a charity donation page after a disaster once and it was also similarly censored. I deleted it and reposted a text-only status asking people to google certain words to find the page and only then could my friends see the post. They do similar things on Instagram as well, most of my followers can't see most of my posts anymore. Because I don't do this Reel bullshit, Instagram has decided to mostly censor my content from my own friends. Not surprised they do it on WhatsApp at all.
- jeromegv 4y ago
  Not really censorship but more like the algo. Algo promotes Facebook videos over YouTube. For a while also promoted text posts over external links, so that you don’t go outside Facebook. And now promote reels over video on IG This is the beauty of algos!
  - dheera 4y ago
    I prefer to call it what it is. Using "algo" as an excuse to make friend-to-friend communications not get seen is tantamount to censorship.
IceWreck 4y ago
I think its a phishing detection algorithm blocking this.
prvit 4y ago
privacy settings
dontbenebby 4y ago
That's shitty, IIRC at one point they stopped either Wikileaks or Assange or both from trending on Twitter, but Signal is a tool, it's evil to try to stop people from moving from a walled garden to something more free. Though the phone number thing remains an issue, I keep putting off re-imaging my phone due to the holidays, which sucks since it was originally meant to de-escalate things since I tend to post harder than some folks in civil society -- I'm from Pennsylvania -- I'll go back to literally keeping a fucking copy of PGP with my lock picks if we need to, Gen Z wasn't around for the drumbeat for the Iraq war, and I'm not going to stop showing up in the comments section to be annoyingly persistent that there's a second amendment argument for crypto if folks want to keep pairing rollbacks on the second amendment without disarmament of the police... I can't wait to go back to London. (Also, try not to drum up business for your friend who's a therapist by being rude on dating applications if you want to complain about toxicity in non romantic contexts, and that's the last I ever want to say on that beyond "enjoy trick or treating, the adults don't deserve a party".)
Markoff 4y ago
after latest metallization I wanted to give Signal another chance, got johann signal fork which I plan to use mostly like SMS app, no problem to install and obtain verification registration code on my lineage gapps free phone running Oreo, but funnily wife's phone with gapps and newer Android was never able to obtain code or call
Gys 4y ago
Also anecdotally, a friend also changed the profile photo to refer telegram and signal and I still see it now.
roland35 4y ago
I don't have specific insight into WhatsApp but I agree with some other commenters here that changing your profile picture and having a link in the text definitely fits the pattern of a phishing attempt. It was probably auto-detected. Sorry you got caught up in that! I know it is fun to have conspiracy theories but I assure you it is much more boring than that :)
DicIfTEx 4y ago
> I don't usually go in for conspiracy theories, but this one seems pretty clear-cut Ouch, this petard with which I have been hoisted is chafing awfully... The commenters who suggested reviewing my privacy settings were on the right track. At some point (most likely several years ago) I set everything to ‘Contacts Only’. Then, when I migrated to Signal as my primary messaging app I denied the WhatsApp app all permissions, including access to my Contacts. As anyone who has tried to use WhatsApp without letting it slurp everything can attest, the app then goes out of its way to be a pain in the ass, such as by showing all chat participants as phone numbers (even when the person has set their own name) and refusing to let you message anybody new. So it looks like WhatsApp decided that as nobody was my contact any more, nobody got to see my profile picture and ‘About’ text. I've now changed my privacy settings and can confirm that they are both appearing for others again.

140 points by DicIfTEx 4y ago

nonasktell 4y ago

Have you checked your privacy settings? They may also automatically shadowblock famous companies logos to prevent phishing/scamming

c7b 4y ago

Have you tried a few other images / descriptions to confirm that it is indeed only Signal that's not being shown?

arran-nz 4y ago

Okay, this is interesting. My WhatsApp profile has been dormant for almost 2 years. Before uninstalling the app, like you, I changed my profile picture to the Signal logo and wrote a similar about section. My friend just checked my profile, the profile photo was shown briefly before being removed - The about section is also blank.

veeti 4y ago
Devil's advocate, could there be some sort of inactivity timeout for a profile being removed? Your friend's device could have had it cached and then refreshed.

yieldcrv 4y ago

In your screenshots its not clear what the expected behavior is supposed to be There are different OS’ from mine and different views Can you label and also show the expected behavior?

Pabloski80 4y ago

As for text, be creative with leetspeak and diacritics or Unicode and other funny characters. As for image it shall be easier. Try out a few filters after which the Meth RoboCop will give up. This one is roughly comparable to uncrackable so far caotcha problem.

Calvin02 4y ago

Seems to be working for me. My profile photo is set to “My Contacts” and I was able to view the Signal logo on my wife’s WA account. Both of us are on the latest iOS version.

Spare_account 4y ago

My 'Status' message on WhatsApp has been "Let's switch to Signal: https://signal.org/install https://signal.org/install" since January 2021 and I've checked periodically (including just now) and it is visible on other people's devices. My profile picture is my own face, though. Perhaps, as other people have said, the restriction being applied by WhatsApp is related to your choice of image more than the text? Screenshot: https://imgur.com/5c1rQyM https://imgur.com/5c1rQyM

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Yoric 4y ago

My theory: in the past, malicious actors have created WhatsApp users who pretended to be Microsoft tech support (or similar) for phishing purposes and used official logos and URLs as their profile pictures to make the impersonation (slightly) more believable. WhatsApp T&S team now detects what you're doing as a likely phishing attempt and deactivates it silently.

ayhanfuat 4y ago

They’ve been doing something similar for Telegram for a long time: https://twitter.com/durov/status/671357796730834945 https://twitter.com/durov/status/671357796730834945

rvz 4y ago

> I don't usually go in for conspiracy theories I thought HN didn't like 'conspiracy theories'? Or is it that they are only acceptable if its for either things that most HNers use, or there is a villain to scream at like Meta, Big Tech, Elon Musk, etc I guess? Either way, seems like an interesting one, if true that is.

spoils19 4y ago
- jbverschoor 4y ago
  Soo how is this true and other things aren’t?

dheera 4y ago

It's Meta. They censor stuff. If I post Youtube videos on Facebook they usually get covertly censored (i.e. I can see it bu my friends can't see it on their feeds). It doesn't happen if I post the video directly to Facebook. Though once when I posted a video of me playing Beethoven on Facebook they censored out the audio because their idiot ML thought it was copyrighted music. I posted a link of a charity donation page after a disaster once and it was also similarly censored. I deleted it and reposted a text-only status asking people to google certain words to find the page and only then could my friends see the post. They do similar things on Instagram as well, most of my followers can't see most of my posts anymore. Because I don't do this Reel bullshit, Instagram has decided to mostly censor my content from my own friends. Not surprised they do it on WhatsApp at all.

jeromegv 4y ago
Not really censorship but more like the algo. Algo promotes Facebook videos over YouTube. For a while also promoted text posts over external links, so that you don’t go outside Facebook. And now promote reels over video on IG This is the beauty of algos!
- dheera 4y ago
  I prefer to call it what it is. Using "algo" as an excuse to make friend-to-friend communications not get seen is tantamount to censorship.

IceWreck 4y ago

I think its a phishing detection algorithm blocking this.

prvit 4y ago

privacy settings

dontbenebby 4y ago

That's shitty, IIRC at one point they stopped either Wikileaks or Assange or both from trending on Twitter, but Signal is a tool, it's evil to try to stop people from moving from a walled garden to something more free. Though the phone number thing remains an issue, I keep putting off re-imaging my phone due to the holidays, which sucks since it was originally meant to de-escalate things since I tend to post harder than some folks in civil society -- I'm from Pennsylvania -- I'll go back to literally keeping a fucking copy of PGP with my lock picks if we need to, Gen Z wasn't around for the drumbeat for the Iraq war, and I'm not going to stop showing up in the comments section to be annoyingly persistent that there's a second amendment argument for crypto if folks want to keep pairing rollbacks on the second amendment without disarmament of the police... I can't wait to go back to London. (Also, try not to drum up business for your friend who's a therapist by being rude on dating applications if you want to complain about toxicity in non romantic contexts, and that's the last I ever want to say on that beyond "enjoy trick or treating, the adults don't deserve a party".)

Markoff 4y ago

after latest metallization I wanted to give Signal another chance, got johann signal fork which I plan to use mostly like SMS app, no problem to install and obtain verification registration code on my lineage gapps free phone running Oreo, but funnily wife's phone with gapps and newer Android was never able to obtain code or call

Gys 4y ago

Also anecdotally, a friend also changed the profile photo to refer telegram and signal and I still see it now.

roland35 4y ago

I don't have specific insight into WhatsApp but I agree with some other commenters here that changing your profile picture and having a link in the text definitely fits the pattern of a phishing attempt. It was probably auto-detected. Sorry you got caught up in that! I know it is fun to have conspiracy theories but I assure you it is much more boring than that :)

DicIfTEx 4y ago

> I don't usually go in for conspiracy theories, but this one seems pretty clear-cut Ouch, this petard with which I have been hoisted is chafing awfully... The commenters who suggested reviewing my privacy settings were on the right track. At some point (most likely several years ago) I set everything to ‘Contacts Only’. Then, when I migrated to Signal as my primary messaging app I denied the WhatsApp app all permissions, including access to my Contacts. As anyone who has tried to use WhatsApp without letting it slurp everything can attest, the app then goes out of its way to be a pain in the ass, such as by showing all chat participants as phone numbers (even when the person has set their own name) and refusing to let you message anybody new. So it looks like WhatsApp decided that as nobody was my contact any more, nobody got to see my profile picture and ‘About’ text. I've now changed my privacy settings and can confirm that they are both appearing for others again.