Why I’m quitting WhatsApp
Since the internet exploded at the beginning of 2021 with the news that WhatsApp is updating it’s terms of service to allow it to share your data with its parent company Facebook a furious debate is raging about whether or not to abandon WhatsApp in favour of alternative messaging platforms. I’m going to try to outline, as briefly as possible, why I am going to boycott WhatsApp from the end of January 2021, and why we all should.
Tracking, ad nauseum
At first the debate focussed on what information is being shared, whether Telegram is more secure, and whether enough people will adopt Signal to make it a viable alternative. Later it moved on to whether anything actually changed and whether this isn’t just a storm in a teacup. The real concern is the amount and kind of data collected by Facebook and WhatsApp and how that is being used against you.
Most people that I speak to have no idea how much data Facebook already collects about them. Besides your direct interactions with Facebook products (posting, liking, checking in, etc) it also tracks you on most of the web sites you regularly visit and many of the apps you use on a daily basis, and uses that data to create a rich profile of you, even if you don’t have a Facebook account.
Until recently I wasn’t too concerned about Facebook tracking because I’m a Facebook-lurker and took measures to minimise the tracking (everyone should at least use the Facebook Container from Firefox). However, the WhatsApp pop-up and the storm around it made me reconsider: While an occasional Facebook user, I use(d) WhatsApp many times a day for work and personal reasons. The data about whom I speak to, how often I speak to them, and at what times I do it, is much more intimate and I do not want this kind of information correlated with my internet browsing data for an über-profile of me.
Algorithmic mass-opinion forming
This brings me to why we need a mass boycott of apps like WhatsApp and Facebook. These companies monetise your attention and use algorithms to hold your attention for as long as possible by showing you more content they already know you like, in the end mostly to show you advertisements. They use all the data harvested about you to create a profile of you that allows them to target you with content with fine-grained criteria down to your personality type. Practically this means Facebook’s algorithms determine what content you see, and what you see informs your opinions. This is very concerning on an individual level, but when you consider the implications for the whole global society it is staggering. The polarising and radicalising effect that social media has had is already clearly seen and nowhere else more obvious than in the recent American election and its aftermath.
The fact that only a few companies have so much power to influence the opinions of society is very alarming, but when I consider Facebook’s long, poor track record of stewarding this responsibility I am frightened. They seem willing to make money at any cost and with no true consideration for the impact it has on society. I find it quite telling that Facebook, along with Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and several other online platforms only decided to ban Donald Trump when it was clear that his presence became a liability where previously it was a benefit (Twitter stock declined significantly after their decision).
Clearly the problem is much bigger than just the instant messaging app you chose to use. As a bare minimum we should all learn to be aware of how the content we consume informs our opinions, and how we get served with that content. Such awareness allows you to think about it more objectively and to form your own opinion, rather than just accepting what is served up by an algorithm. It turns out that online privacy is a fundamental requirement for democracy because without it a small elite can dominate the values and opinions of the common man, as it is today.
So, what about WhatsApp?
Your data is the price you pay for using “free” services like WhatsApp. It is the fuel that drives the digital economy and the richer the data the more powerful the engagement that can be generated — in a self-reinforcing cycle. This juggernaut will keep on forming your opinions, enraging you and sucking you in until you are crushed under its gargantuan wheels. I cannot hand over the high octane data of my WhatsApp usage with a good conscience, and I hope that you won’t either.
WhatsApp data is especially powerful because of how consistently — almost addictively — we use it and because it reveals so much about your personal interactions in the real world. Soon WhatsApp will also start serving ads based on your profile, and influencing the minds of its 2 billion users, even those who don’t normally engage with social media on other platforms.
But Facebook says nothing changes?
Since this storm broke Facebook is insisting that the only thing that’s changed is how data from interactions with WhatsApp Business accounts is managed. That simply is not true. With the new update (which has now been delayed until May and will be rolled out incrementally; cynically this can be viewed as an attempt to avoid a further backlash) users no longer have the option to opt out of sharing their data with Facebook. Granted, with the delay they may now change this, but more likely they are just waiting for the storm to pass. I’m afraid the strategy is working.
Whether Facebook and WhatsApp ever actually honoured the choice to opt out of the data sharing it is certain very few users found and made use of this option and it is high time to abandon WhatsApp and Facebook for the overbearing power they have, as I explained above. We also have no reason to believe it when Facebook says they will only use the data for Business interactions. What stops them from using it for any other purpose?
On security, Telegram and Signal
tl;dr: Use Signal.
If not WhatsApp, then which app? Telegram is at least as secure as WhatsApp (leaving aside debates about Telegram’s propriety encryption protocol), with one notable exception. WhatsApp claims that it can not read your messages. That is not true. There exists a deliberate aspect of WhatsApp that allows it to force the sender to re-encrypt and resend messages, like when the recipient was offline when the message was first sent, but this could potentially also be used by other parties, or WhatsApp themselves, to read a target’s messages. At least it’s impractical to use this capability on a large scale. Nitpicking, yes, but don’t just drink the cool-aid.
Telegram, on the other hand conveniently backs up all of your messages to their servers, except “Secret” chats which are more analogous to Signal messages. The notable exception is that the price of this convenience is that Telegram also stores the encryption keys used to secure the messages. So far Telegram seems committed to privacy and free speech, but I am a bit concerned by the lack of transparency. As a private company they have an incentive to hide any data breaches and because of the back ups and the keys being in hand such a breach can be severe and the damage to their business could be permanent.
In the end Signal is the only verifiably secure messaging app. It is completely open source, which means many security experts have independently reviewed its implementation. Its messages are truly end-to-end encrypted and can’t be resent without the sender’s consent, which means only the intended recipient can read it. My favourite distinction is that Signal is an independent non-profit company that relies on donations to provide a free product in the service of free expression and privacy. Signal is also the only app that doesn’t collect data in order to tie it to your identity.
Conclusion
The hysteria about WhatsApp’s new privacy policy may be late and somewhat dislocated, but there is never a better time than now to make important decisions. One of the biggest concerns that any internet citizen should have today is the ever-increasing volume of data that companies like WhatsApp and Facebook collect and how they use that to form the values and opinions of society. Your choice to boycott WhatsApp may seem like farting in the wind, but it only takes a critical minority of a certain size to change the direction of the rest.
Telegram is a good app and it’s future will depend on whether it can successfully monetise the social aspects of its platform without displaying adds in messages. There are a few causes for concern, but at least they appear genuine in their pursuit of creating a messaging platform with privacy and freedom at its heart. I will probably be using Telegram as my second-choice messaging tool.
Signal is the only place where you get full-featured private and secure messaging with no strings attached. If you find that it is valuable to you, please support it!
