15 ms·

In terms of Facebook where I live, "Well don't just use their services then" is simply impossible. Almost all of my kids' sports activities and parent groups ar

• account42 4y ago
  Even without the privacy issues it is insane that you are forced to do business with certain corporations in order to fully participate in society. But most people don't care or open alternatives would be more popular.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • JustSomeNobody 4y ago
    > But most people don't care or open alternatives would be more popular. I disagree with your premise. Whatsapp wasn't always owned by FB/Meta. It had a huge user base then got bought out. Alternatives like Signal are popular, but it's hard to overcome inertia. Give them time.
    • nevinera 4y ago
      .. time to get a huge userbase and then bought out?
    • t0bia_s 4y ago
      No. Centralised IM is bad in design by default. We need decentralisation. Like email still has and it is also a reason wh is it so popular. I would rather say "Give time to decentralisation". It slowly became a standard. If more people abandon abusive software.
  • maccard 4y ago
    This isn't unique to WhatsApp/Meta though. Many banks require a smartphone running unrooted Android or iOS. Visa/Mastercard(and AMEX I guess) have a polyopoly(?) on cashless transactions, and have done for my entire life. Many government services here in the UK are provided by private corporations, and have been for a very long time. Another way of thinking of it is that the value that Meta/Mastercard/Virgin/other companies that fit that description provide is so substantial that they have become intertwined with society. The reality is likely somewhere in the middle IMO
    • geraldhh 4y ago
      > Many government services here in the UK are provided by private corporations how's that working out? asking for a friend who thinks that for-profit healthcare was a step in the wrong direction.
      • maccard 4y ago
        In my opinion, "fine" is about as far as I'd go. It's neither good nor bad. The real cause for issues over the last 20 years is the lack of sustained funding, and that applies to both public and private corporations. > for-profit healthcare was a step in the wrong direction. Using the words "for-profit healthcare" is a distraction from the topic. GP's have been private since the beginning of the NHS, they're the definition of for-profit healthcare. On the flip side, Virgin operates many of the major healthcare provdiers as an NHS service provider. I'm not saying that they're incredible, but they're doing it. The option isn't "public", it's public and sustained funding and investment. Given the govenment of the last decade in the UK, I'm not convinced the situation would be any better if the NHS was more public than it is.
    • eropple 4y ago
      > polyopoly Oligopoly.
      • neodypsis 4y ago
        Oligopoly allowed by network effects.
      • maccard 4y ago
        Yeah, that's exactly wht I mean. I knew polyopoly sounded wrong, but I couldn't figure out what the right word was!
• justchill 4y ago
  Then make a stand. I am in the same boat, yet for me I just get called or texted.
  • 9dev 4y ago
    Most probably you’re simply left out if others plan activities. It’s annoying, but that’s how it is.
• tcfhgj 4y ago
  Impossible until you just uninstall it
• f1refly 4y ago
  "Simply impossible" is relative once you don't use whatsapp anymore. People will just adjust to send you sms or call you instead for important information.
  • razemio 4y ago
    In my experience this is not true at all, especially in huge groups. I was participating in a co-housing project and after a few weeks the obligatory WhatsApp Group was forming. Immediately some people refused to join and proposed Signal / Threema instead. End of the story, the WhatsApp Group is still alive and the biggest of them all. If you are not part of it you will miss important information. Sometimes it gets forwarded to Signal but it is a rare occurrence. It only works reliable for messages directly addressed to a person. Then people remember, oh he does not have WhatsApp. I will tell him via signal.
  • WastingMyTime89 4y ago
    Anything involving a group is planned through WhatsApp here. It’s also used to push information to large group of people. It’s my main source of news about my extended family and how I learn about spontaneous after work gathering for example. If I leave these, people are not going to reach out to me about them. I will just cast myself as an outsider and will be left out of the loop.
  • krisoft 4y ago
    > People will just adjust to send you sms or call you instead for important information. Or they won't and you will be left out of things. Not even out of malice! Obviously your closest friend and family will adapt and keep you in the loop. Bigger looser groups are more dubious. I'm a member of a book club for example. There are of course the scheduled meets, organised well in advance. But also sometimes someone just feels like hanging and posts a message on a whatsapp group that they will be at this or that location and whoever is free is welcome to join. Schedules don't always permit it, but when it works out it is fun! Now of course if someone from the group so want to meet with specifically you/me they will remember to send a one-on-one message, but there is a power in the broadcast nature of some of these things for organisation.
  • 4y ago
• NayamAmarshe 4y ago
  > Almost all of my kids' sports activities and parent groups are on WhatsApp, I have to use it. My company asked me to install WhatsApp once, but I explained to them why I don't use it, and they didn't have a problem with it. Sometimes, all people need to know is 'no' and most of the time they don't even need an explanation.
  • closewith 4y ago
    In large swathes of the world, refusing to use WhatsApp means losing contact with the majority of people you know. It's the de facto communications method in many countries.
    • NayamAmarshe 4y ago
      I live in a country where WhatsApp is used by almost everyone. I uninstalled it 2 years ago and told my contacts that they can find me on Telegram if they'd like to contact me. Most of my friends and family switched to Telegram, and I'm really grateful for that. I don't miss any updates, and I'm able to communicate on a platform I like. In the beginning, they found it odd, but eventually started to like it and some now even prefer it.
      • closewith 4y ago
        My honest reply is that you don't know the conversations you were excluded from because of this decision.
        • NayamAmarshe 4y ago
          And to be honest, I realize that, and I'm absolutely fine with it. Maybe some won't be, but the path of idealism isn't always the most convenient.
          • danielheath 4y ago
            Taking the consequences works fine if you're not responsible for anyone but yourself. "Sorry kids, you aren't going to your friends parties or playing sports with them because my ideals conflict with your reality" is not a tenable position.
• ekianjo 4y ago
  > Almost all of my kids' sports activities and parent groups are on WhatsApp, I have to use it. Stop associating with clueless people
  • concordDance 4y ago
    Child abandonment is illegal
    • tcfhgj 4y ago
      This has nothing to do with child abandonment
• esskay 4y ago
  Even if you avoid it their trackers are on so many sites that its very hard to not have them collect data on you. Even after opting out I doubt they can actually follow through and not know anything about you.
  • citrin_ru 4y ago
    Not only sites. Many iOS and Andriod apps send data to FB.
• redeeman 4y ago
  no. you WANT to use it
• taude 4y ago
  WhatsApp is the one app that I continue to use by them. Aren't they only able to collect meta-data on the conversations and not see any of the texts themselves? Also, no ads yet, so that's a win for me. Everytime I've tried moving people over to Signal/Telegram, etc. we try it for a week and then go back to WhatApp because of so many other groups on there....
  • JustSomeNobody 4y ago
    > Aren't they only able to collect meta-data on the conversations and not see any of the texts themselves? Also, no ads yet, so that's a win for me. Ha! I so don't trust Meta. I wouldn't put it past them to double encrypt your messages and split it off at the server. Edit: Clarification: Encrypt your plaintext twice, append it, split it off at the server. Send your message on to recipient and decrypt it themselves for their processing enjoyment.
  • ashwagary 4y ago
    >Aren't they only able to collect meta-data on the conversations and not see any of the texts themselves. After seeing the lengths various govts will go to for full text access, I highly doubt it. There is also no way to reliably prove the e2ee claims of WA, so I would remain skeptical.
• Xelbair 4y ago
  it doesn't matter if you have account or not - you are still tracked and they still create a shadow profile for you.
• mrits 4y ago
  That doesn't sound impossible. Your kids don't even have to play sports. We act like privacy is that important to us but then we go ahead and do things like this. I'm not on Meta side on this but I actually don't use a lot of services that I'd like to and have real inconveniences because a certain level of privacy is actually important to me.
• dangwhy 4y ago
  > simply impossible > all of my kids' sports activities and parent groups I thought you were going to followup with some anti-dictatorship or something. not parent groups lol.
• _a_a_a_ 4y ago
  "Have to" is quite strong isn't it. It is a bit hard to believe. Okay, do what I do if there's something you don't use often and you don't trust it: install it in a VM and spin it up only as necessary.
  • Ar-Curunir 4y ago
    Jesus christ. What about a random person who doesn't have the tech know-how to do that? Should they just give up on privacy? Privacy is a human right, not a technologically-advanced-person right. And before anyone says "Well, sucks to not know basic tech stuff", consider the fact that in a world where no-one has privacy, the person using Facebook from a VM is eminently more trackable than in a world where privacy is enforced globally.
    • _a_a_a_ 4y ago
      I was talking to you specifically, not generally to random people. You're right; that would not be good advice to the average random person. But TARP probably wouldn't care. I hope you would and would have that ability. > Privacy is a human right, not a technologically-advanced-person right Yeah I suppose it is, but I'm starting to give up on the idea because all the people who whinge here on HN and elsewhere about privacy won't actually do anything about it, like give up exactly the things that they are willing to pour their life's details into. TL;DR people have to put some effort into securing their privacy and >95% of people won't. Stop blaming the companies for stealing your privacy when you're giving it away willingly.
      • Ar-Curunir 4y ago
        I’m not even the OP. Regardless, your entire post is way too defeatist . We can and have made changes that meaningfully improve end-user privacy. For example, Apple’s changes on iOS led to massive reductions in data collected from user apps. This was pushed by people inside Apple. Similarly, governments can and have pushed for privacy regulations. Not all of it has been successful, but we’re at the first wave of these efforts.
• pleb_nz 4y ago
  They do in my area as well, I just refused and some are starting to use other means again.