251
Today, I finally deleted WhatsApp
(sh.itjust.works)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2026
251 points (98.8% liked)
Privacy
47396 readers
1490 users here now
A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
Some Rules
- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
- Don't promote proprietary software
- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
- Be nice :)
Related communities
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
WhatsApp has significant market dominance in Europe, to the point that only one or two people I know who live on that continent don't use it. If you give someone your phone number in Europe, they will almost certainly send you a WhatsApp message, not an SMS.
It's not a need in the sense that you'll die without it, but not having it adds significant friction to social relationships.
At least Europe rarely uses WhatsApp for business porposes. It's worse in Asia and South America where WhatsApp and Facebook are literally the internet, including the enterprise space.
And the reason it's less the default in the US isn't because people are so forward-thinking to use signal, but iOS being so uniquitous that people use iMessage.
People everywhere are just somewhat lazy and just don't know better.
That's... Wow! Here, people prefer to use non-SMS options for messaging too, but if you give someone a phone number it's pretty much assumed you're getting an SMS unless they ask if you have WhatsApp, signal, or whatever else. That said, using Messenger is still pretty common here, as much as I'd wish it would die off. It is, slowly, but it needs to be quicker lol
If I put someone's number into the contacts on my phone, I will see what messaging apps are connected to that phone number in most cases. If they have Signal, I'll try that first. I'll try WhatsApp before SMS because it's a better user experience and probably encrypted.
Okay, that's both cool and scary lol and Fair, yeah. I think WhatsApp would be the last on my list. I'd rather my telecom company siphon the data over Meta, but I get you
How much of the data Meta can siphon is an open question as I understand it. WhatsApp definitely uses encryption, but there are a bunch of ways the client could send them the cleartext, especially if one allows their chatbot into a conversation.
It's hard to say which is worse. I have a fair number of contacts on Signal now, and I find that's a good balance of easy and trustworthy.
It's not really that they get the clear texts, but that they get access to who you talk to, when, and kinda how long are your messages. That metadata is super valuable. Over long periods, just with that metadata there's a lot that can be inferred.
My distrust of Meta wants to say they somehow siphon everything, but you're probably right. We don't know for sure, and speculating is probably just crazy-making at the end of the day.
I'm seriously just considering setting up a self hosted Matrix instance and piping all my chat apps through that. Get the more tech literate friends on something more secure, and then be done with the rest lol I'm basically already the unofficial (and untrained) sysadmin for my property lol