A while back, Whatsapp came under a lot of backlash due to some changes it made to its privacy policy. People were furious that Whatsapp was going to share their data with Facebook. I don’t know the exact terms of this because I didn’t care, but I see the news making headlines again so I thought let’s write about this.
Look, I am a strong believer in privacy. But this bashing of Facebook and Whatsapp seems…. hypocritical. Anyone with a little sense knew this was coming the day it was announced that Whatsapp had been acquired for $16 billion (I think). What did people think would happen? That they could message for free? Of course Whatsapp needs to earn money to pay its billion and ever rising users. It wasn’t bought for charity. The same people who were furious at Whatsapp are the same ones who spend all their day liking stupid pictures on Instagram (owned by Facebook). It is all the same. Your data is not yours. Same applies to all the services used by Google, Amazon and Microsoft. I know Facebook is regarded as the culprit in data privacy here, but they are just a social media platform. Some differences in privacy policies are there, but broadly speaking all these companies are the same. Our data is used and shared across their apps and platforms because that is the only way to keep them free. There is no difference.
There are no free lunches guys. It makes no sense to attack Whatsapp. Sorry.
You want privacy. I get it. There are alternatives but you will have to pay. We have Apple Maps, ProtonMail, ExpressVPN, DuckDuckGo, Signal etc. which you can use to protect privacy. But I get it. We cannot escape Google or FB or others.
How about instead of worrying about data practices of others, we start being responsible for our own work? At the end of the day, we are responsible for what we share or see on our phones and laptops. We are responsible for any fake news we may share, or believe. We can unfollow people who are pushing their own agendas or not adding value to our feeds. Stop worrying about the big companies taking care of your data and information. You can limit your exposure and use these things smartly to your benefit, not peril.
