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I think the harsh reality is that most don't care , they click "Agree, Agree, Agree"...
About 15 years ago (maybe?) I was installing a music plugin and I read the EULA. It says that I must be the one who uses it. Even if I'm in a band, I can't let a bandmate use my software; not even if it's on my laptop and I let him/her use my laptop.

This is very rare. Most EULAs say that you can have up to 2 (or 3 or 5; it's all on a case-by-case basis) copies of the software installed (one on a laptop and one on a desktop computer), as long as only one is in use at a time.

My point is, you have to read the fine print ALWAYS or else you could find yourself out of compliance with the agreement. In today's world, you could be canceled; ignorance of the rules is no excuse.
Time to get better friends...
This may be truer than you suspect!
I only have two family members who use Android and when they communicate with me, they don't use WhatsApp. They use their default messaging app. And any coworkers who need to contact me do the same. I made it very clear early on, that I do not and will not use WhatsApp or anything else FB related.
One of my friends says he'll delete your phone number from his contacts if you send him any kind of message from anything other than the vanilla messaging app. He claims to have deleted his mom, two sisters, and a now-former girlfriend.

That's one tough dude!
I am not from the US, but I see freedom is dying in your country. Riles for me, not for you.. do as I do, not as you do. Praying for all of you.
Well, thank you. But Freedom only dies when it's not defended. And it's really not being defended but by a few who are not heard anymore.
In my experience you don't choose a messaging platform, your friends do.
What, you don't do periodic performance evals on your friends?
If 100% of the people you know use Messenger, then you will use Messenger whether you like it or not. You can be the only one on some privacy-focused platform that no one else uses but you'll have no one to talk to.
I can always talk to somebody if I want to. It's a really complicated set of steps to follow, but I think I've got the hang of it now. Mostly.

  • Think of their name
  • Look up their name in my contacts
  • Call them
  • If they say "hello", ask them how they are and see where the conversation goes
  • If you get this thing called "voicemail", just say who you are and ask them to call you back

It would be much easier if I could just say, "Hey Siri, call so-and-so", but Siri likes to randomize the person, and even send them a risque text before calling them, so usually I just "let my fingers do the walking".

Hey, that should be an advertising jingle, d'ya think?
It's unfortunate, but it's reality over here. You can have your idealism, but then you won't be able to do much in life.
No, actually I can do MORE in life if I limit how often I'm leaving nose-prints on my phone or tablet.
And Parler is back using services that don't care about its members encouring rape, murder, and violence.
Fake news, dude. Parler had a LOT of great, real, and normal people on it. There was even a lot of philanthropic stuff happening on Parler. But you just keep on believing what the hacks at CNN tell you.
A case of this has happened recently. A British woman was about to leave Dubai when she was arrested because her flatmate went to the police to report her for swearing in a message she had sent her over whatsapp. The case is currently ongoing.

In 2019, again in Dubai, a woman was arrested for making insulting remarks against another woman in a facebook post.

People do not realise that anyone using instant messaging or social media to swear or insult a resident of UAE and that person then visits the UAE, that person can be arrested for breaking UAE's morality laws. It does not matter if you made the posts 5 or 10 years ago, if it's on the police database and it shows up when they check peoples passports at border control, they will arrest you.
Yes. And this happens in the UK and Canada too. You can be arrested not for SAYING something; but for being red-flagged as having said something that you didn't. Kind of like being accused of practicing witchcraft, and being hung or burned at the stake without due process.

People know this, but they continue to exercise willful ignorance. So go ahead, report on your neighbor! Do you fear that the party in control is looking at you for not reporting your quota this month? Or maybe it's more basic, and you just covet his land, his house, his car, or maybe his wife or kids? Make that call! He'll disappear in the middle of the night and you can move right in and start enjoying your new wife!

...well, that is until it's YOUR TURN to be red-flagged.
 
No, actually I can do MORE in life if I limit how often I'm leaving nose-prints on my phone or tablet.
If you're a retiree with with steady income from your pension in the US, sure. But reality is harsh for the rest of us outside the US. If all your business partners, colleagues, government officials, etc communicate via Whatsapp, are you sure you can do much opting out of it? You'll be left out sooner than later.

It's like wechat. You can dislike China as much as you want, but if you want to do business with Chinese people, you have to be on wechat.

So far I only have two friends on Signal. One is very enthusiastic about signal, the other installed it for curiosity. But guess what, we all still communicate on Whatsapp since our groups and the rest of the people are still on it.

There's something called critical mass. Whatsapp has gone through it thus it becomes de facto standard. The rest of the alternatives have not (unless it's region specific like wechat for the Chinese, Line for Japanese, etc). It's the unfortunate situation, and Facebook knows this (thus the reason they purchased Whatsapp in the first place).

The real contender should be Apple, by releasing iMessage on Android. That will bring privacy expectations and parity for Android users, but Apple doesn't seem to be interested in that.
 
Everyone I know despite having iPhone’s uses WhatsApp and it really does bug me. Me and my partner both use iMessage but had no luck getting anyone else to switch.
I see you're from Europe as well:)
I understand you though. I am in the same boat. I can't break free from WhatsApp because of my family and I've tried to convince them but no luck.
 
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This max exodus away from WhatsApp I am assuming is in the US? I haven’t heard of anybody in my circles discussing this or suggesting not using WhatsApp anymore. I’ve only seen this topic being discussed on Mac Rumours to be fair .
I’m an IT and tech support, I’ve been flooded by calls and mail about it. Everyone is switching to Telegram.
 
Why is it news that you are required to accept the terms of use for a service? Not aware of any company that would permit you to continue using their services if you refuse.
Have you not read into the fact it’s the content of these terms and conditions under scrutiny, not just the fact the terms and conditions have changed?
WhatsApp? You mean the app that Telegram replaced?
It’s a very long way off that being the case right now.
 
One of my friends says he'll delete your phone number from his contacts if you send him any kind of message from anything other than the vanilla messaging app. He claims to have deleted his mom, two sisters, and a now-former girlfriend.

That's one tough dude!
That reminds me of my cousin. He’s been very aggressively vocal about his hate for anything social media or internet based. If you use Amazon then ‘you are scum’ apparently. At family parties before COVID he’d not want to be in any photos just in case one ended up on social media and his anonymous face ended up being included. We have a family WhatsApp group and obviously he’s the only member missing. My aunt often shares his news with us and is upset he doesn’t get involved. Secretly everybody is disinterested because of how much of a moron he’s been. People can go out of their way to be weird and antagonistic lol.
 
Facebook should never have been allowed to buy Whatsapp. For many, it's now literally impossible to truly break free from Facebook. I hate that f----g site with a passion. It had a brief moment of supplying value by "connecting" long lost friends 15 years ago, but now its just worthless, evil and detrimental to people's mental health.

Bingo! Couldn’t have said this better. Sadly others may connext to long lost friends only to find they are twisted or NOT the kind of people who’s personality, beliefs and lifestyles is something you’d want in your personal circle ever. They’re not and lost for a reason. And no I’m not being negative just speaking from my own experience.

I’ve always preferred a few really good and solid friends - based on character NOT what they have, their success, or whom they know or their social/community status. Just real and good peoples. The popularity game - never played, I took myself out of the equation without being any centre of ridicule. Good friends is hard to find and keeping them is never work, neither for them. Friends is like the tightest people in your family - in fact they are (to me at least).

My first lesson in friendships - Whodini - Friends.
“Friends the word we everyday,
sometimes we use it in the wrong way,
now you can look-up the word again & again,
but the dictionary doesn’t know the meaning of friends..”
(real funk)
 
Please note that this new privacy policy does not apply in the EU, as it's against GDPR to share data between Facebook and WhatsApp.

If Facebook would not obey the rules in Europe, they would face a big fine (like 1 Billion euro or so). Basically those GDPR rules where also invented to not let companies from outside Europe steal all our (meta)data for their business use. So yes, they will obey the legislation (or face the consequences).

People in Europe will not be asked to accept new privacy rules for Whatsapp - Facebook because nothing is changing for them! The fuzz is only for the world minus Europe (minus UK).
Maybe. I doubt it though.

As said, fb has a history of violating the rules. Plus: who actually has access to check what facebook is doing? Who is auditing their systems, databases and source code?
 
........

Yes. And this happens in the UK and Canada too. You can be arrested not for SAYING something; but for being red-flagged as having said something that you didn't. Kind of like being accused of practicing witchcraft, and being hung or burned at the stake without due process.

People know this, but they continue to exercise willful ignorance. So go ahead, report on your neighbor! Do you fear that the party in control is looking at you for not reporting your quota this month? Or maybe it's more basic, and you just covet his land, his house, his car, or maybe his wife or kids? Make that call! He'll disappear in the middle of the night and you can move right in and start enjoying your new wife!

...well, that is until it's YOUR TURN to be red-flagged.
When this is put into the context of my post, your reply is incorrect. With regards to the UK, you cannot be arrested for using generalised swear words or generalised insults towards someone in a social media post. The instances regarding the two examples I gave, in the one the British woman used the swear word 'F off' in a whatsapp post and in the second example, the British woman called another woman a 'horse' in a facebook post. Neither of these posts would have got the women arrested in the UK and I am sure neither would they in Canada but it got them arrested in Dubai because the people the posts were aimed at were residents of Dubai. The issue is, it does not matter where you live in the world. If you use ny social media to swear or insult a resident of Dubai and they complain to the police, you will be arrested at the airport if you was to ever visit Dubai because your name would come up on the border control computer system as being wanted by the Dubai police.
 
I wish Apple would release iMessage as a cross platform messaging app. I'm using four messaging apps regularly now because my contacts have split between the different apps.
Apple really missed a train with iMessage. I, as well as my friends, would NEVER use a non cross-platform chat app. It's completely irrelevant as it is now. A total wast of resources and time, what a pity.
 
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Already deleted my WhatsApp chats, closed my account, and deleted the app. 👍
I use Telegram. If friends/family care about me, they can reach me on Telegram or through normal SMS.
 
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You can hold an undelivered blue bubble and pick „Send as Text message“. You‘re out of luck though if your contact has another iMessage capable device that receives the message before you can switch a message over to basic SMS.

A setting or option for this would be nice, like add it as a separate tab in the message effect overlay?
 
Facebook should never have been allowed to buy Whatsapp. For many, it's now literally impossible to truly break free from Facebook. I hate that f----g site with a passion. It had a brief moment of supplying value by "connecting" long lost friends 15 years ago, but now its just worthless, evil and detrimental to people's mental health.
I agree 100% ... it’s a burning passion my hate for them
 
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Apple really missed a train with iMessage. I, as well as my friends, would NEVER use a non cross-platform chat app. It's completely irrelevant as it is now. A total wast of resources and time, what a pity.
Apple has been slow on this but it may not be too late if they can turn this around quickly. Apple has a unique position of being a default installed app on iOS, iPadOS and MacOS. Just add Android and keep it secure.
 
I deleted WhatsApp and Messenger recently. Facebook was gone years ago.

I still access Facebook periodically from a dedicated browser so their apps aren’t on my phone and they have no access to my usual cookies.
 
if Blackberry had the foresight to do this in 2012 or whenever whatsapp took off, whatsapp would have never taken off
 
If I am getting "crippled" as a customer, I might think about ignoring the crippling company.
Oh, if you do not agree, you automatically become "inactive" and will be deleted after 120 days. I feel a certain pressure in this term. One might even think about another description for this.
I'm assuming you're thinking of "extortion". As in, "Users are being extorted for their personal data from a company suing Apple for alleged anticompetitive behavior." How poetic.
 
I feel the direct approach is usually the best. Why let users use an app if they don't agree ? The same can be done with privacy policies.. Its the "gradually sliding" that people feel uncomfortable with.
 
I feel the direct approach is usually the best. Why let users use an app if they don't agree ? The same can be done with privacy policies.. Its the "gradually sliding" that people feel uncomfortable with.
Seems like the sliding approach of giving users time to migrate away from the service if they don't agree is kinder than a hard "now you cant access your contacts and data unless you agree".
 
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