Hey Friends,

You may be aware that WhatsApp are changing their terms and conditions which has forced many people to question whether they should remain with the popular platform or move to an alternative platform such as Signal, Telegram or Matrix. In this post I will share a brief history so you can decide for yourself.

If you didn't know, Facebook bought WhatsApp in 2014 for $19b. At that time WhatsApp was only five years old and not making very much money, however, Facebook knew that the value of the company lay in the 450 million users which was rapidly increasing on a daily basis.

The Ukrainian co-founder of WhatsApp promised its users that following the sale of the platform nothing would change; that WhatsApp would not share its user data with Facebook giving the illusion that the app would remain an independent app. However, in reality the messaging platform was soon ingested into the Facebook ecosystem and new features were introduced which effectively linked WhatsApp contacts with Facebook users. This allowed Facebook to create social graph's of WhatsApps users, enabling them to study their relationships based on messaging metadata (logs of who you have communicated with, when, and for how long).

Now the two platforms were linked Facebook announced they were dropping the annual 99c (69p) subscription fee and the service would be completely free. While for most this move sounded fantastic, we privacy minded folk understood that this change came at a cost. Facebook could now allow companies to build lucrative profiles of each of its WhatsApp users raising the questions about privacy. If we needed further confirmation that the privacy of WhatsApp users was now in question it came when WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton left the company, tweeted #delete facebook and donated $50m to the development of the Signal protocol and messaging platform (interesting I think you will agree).

Many believe the ultimate goal of Zuckerberg is to integrate Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook messenger so that a user only requires a single login for all of the platforms. This would allow Facebook access to over 2 billion users data, and essentially every social interaction people make will pass through the Facebook ecosystem.

Now, I can hear people saying to me that this doesn't matter; WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption, so they cannot read my messages. While this is true (to an extent) the value of your interactions are in the metadata; the records of who you have spoken to, for how long, and how frequently. When combined with data from your Facebook/Instagram profiles computers can piece this information together and work out the social, political, and cultural circles you move in. And in turn, your political leanings, health status, career interests, hobbies, purchasing habits, financial activities, and religious beliefs.

In the end, the answer to the question "What's up with WhatsApp" is a personal one we must all consider. But for me, I have already made the move to an alternative platform: Signal. It is not perfect by any means, but it is probably the best\easiest for people to transition to.

If you have any questions about this topic, please do drop me an email.

For now, have a great week.

Take care,

Chris

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Things I've found interesting this week

\\ One Link: Interesting article about news in Australia.

\\ Two Link: Ever wondered why you never got that job?

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