Really, governments should make and moderate their own social media services, the basic concept is a great communication medium for everything from like reporting potholes to promoting blood donation drives to quickly sharing updates during emergency weather situations etc., the kinds of basic citizen service stuff governments should be doing, but when profit notices creep in we get all this data harvesting and Skinner-box algorithmic manipulation that ruins things
And unfortunately, hard to move away from because so many people are using it and it’s hard to push other people to change. I’ve heard of a bill being discussed to force WhatsApp to become interoperable with other messaging platforms that use similar protocols, like Signal. I have WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram, but rarely use the other two because most people I know don’t. The minute interoperability happens I’m ditching WhatsApp, but I’m sure the Zuck will do all it can to prevent it…
I see… Yeah, I guess user data could leak through their interaction with WhatsApp, and a messaging service that whose biggest selling argument is privacy wouldn’t want that… It’s a shame. Guess I’ll just keep using them with the people who do.
Alternatively, we, in the EU could just… Stop using Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok or whatever being used to harvest our data?
Really, governments should make and moderate their own social media services, the basic concept is a great communication medium for everything from like reporting potholes to promoting blood donation drives to quickly sharing updates during emergency weather situations etc., the kinds of basic citizen service stuff governments should be doing, but when profit notices creep in we get all this data harvesting and Skinner-box algorithmic manipulation that ruins things
I hate it how Facebook is a better source of public safety information than some government websites.
If we need to travel the snowy highways you can get better updates on the conditions than the official highways website.
Where I live the government does all this already.
Add WhatsApp to the list
Hell, Whatsapp may be the worst of them all.
And unfortunately, hard to move away from because so many people are using it and it’s hard to push other people to change. I’ve heard of a bill being discussed to force WhatsApp to become interoperable with other messaging platforms that use similar protocols, like Signal. I have WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram, but rarely use the other two because most people I know don’t. The minute interoperability happens I’m ditching WhatsApp, but I’m sure the Zuck will do all it can to prevent it…
Whatsapp already implemented this, but as far as I know nobody took the offer. E.g. Signal and Threema don’t want to connect with WhatsApp.
I see… Yeah, I guess user data could leak through their interaction with WhatsApp, and a messaging service that whose biggest selling argument is privacy wouldn’t want that… It’s a shame. Guess I’ll just keep using them with the people who do.
Can Canada get on board with that too
Can the U.S. also…, oh goddamnit