[oarsinsync]

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.

[fwn]

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.

[oarsinsync]

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.

[fwn]

That is interesting and different from what I have experienced on Android. I've no explanation for that.

[dx034]

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.