this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2023
300 points (99.7% liked)
Technology
37739 readers
740 users here now
A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Not "everyone" uses Whatsapp though - I deleted mine after the Cambridge Analytica scandal and I know of a few others who also did so. As far as I know Whatsapp has still never changed their T&C to pass metadata upstream to Facebook.
This is really region dependent. In Europe (or at least the Netherlands) almost everybody with a smartphone uses Whatsapp
Talk to anyone in latin america, you must use whatsapp. There's no avoiding it. Some have tried Telegram a while ago, but most have reverted back to their usual whatsapp or facebook messenger. It's crazy.
I can vouch for this in a small town of like 5k people in zacatecas, Mexico. Everyone including government and businesses uses WhatsApp. You see the logo with phone numbers all over the place.
Same experience in Argentina and Paraguay
I am in a different part of the world, and what you are saying is also true here for the older generation, while the younger one has no escape from Telegram.
No, not regionally, as Whatsapp is probably used most. It is more individuals who decided not to use Facebook related products. Luckily, about 90% of my contacts are on Telegram. It's a bit sad that a proprietary product that leaks metadata could be so widely used. If there was going to be a single "one product" I'd rather prefer that to be an open standard protocol. Those protocols exist, but are not in broad use. But the W3C standard for social networking, really needs to also cover chat messengers.
Now? Sure. Back then WhatsApp (before it was bought by Facebook) was replacing SMS nearly everywhere.