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by dx034 2996 days ago
Only using whatsapp without other facebook accounts should still be fine. Whatsapp has end2end encryption (unlike FB messenger) and if you don't use other FB products they can't use your data for ads. Obviously not as good as an independent messenger but will cause the same revenue loss for FB.
2 comments
majewsky 2995 days ago
> if you don't use other FB products they can't use your data for ads

They're still siphoning their data. Just refuse WhatsApp access to your phone's address book, and see how it outright punishes you for doing that. Most of my WhatsApp contacts maintain their own names in their profiles, yet WhatsApp stubbornly shows their phone number as contact name. I usually identify contacts by looking at the profile picture (or by the conversation history if they changed that recently). Then again, I only have 3-4 contacts on WhatsApp. I would be less willing to put up with this if there were dozens of active contacts in there.

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oarsinsync 2995 days ago
I believe that’s only text. Try sending someone a video. Takes a while. Try forwarding that video to someone else moments later. Happens pretty quickly.

Same applies with photos in my experience. I’d assume voice notes,location pins, etc are also subject to this as well.

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fwn 2995 days ago
WhatsApp reduces the quality of your media and saves it in a second folder of your gallery.

If you forward already converted media it will be taken from the gallery in it's compressed, substantially smaller version.

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oarsinsync 2995 days ago
On iPhones it has a splash screen for compression and then a separate spinner in the chat for the upload progress for videos. That second upload spinner doesn’t occur for immediately forwarded videos.
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fwn 2994 days ago
That is interesting and different from what I have experienced on Android. I've no explanation for that.
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dx034 2995 days ago
It's all encrypted. Encryption in group chats is a bit weaker to provide better usability (there was an article recently I believe) but messages itself are encrypted. And since we're talking here about usage of data for ad tracking, any encryption is likely good enough.

They can of course still track meta data, e.g. tailor your ads based on interest of contacts. But if you only use whatsapp (ad free), they own't make any money with it.

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