[hairofadog]

Yeah, this is what I do. I mean I know my data is being collected all over the place through other people clicking “yes, take all my data” on this and many other services and apps, but I still don’t like doing it to other people.

So what this means is that when the owner starts a group chat and adds people I haven’t chatted with in WhatsApp before, those third parties show up as just numbers, and I can’t label them even once I learn who they are.

Also, if the owner says “let’s hop on WhatsApp; start a chat and invite (other co-worker)” I have to say that I can’t start group calls, and explaining why gets a lot of eye rolling. And maybe the eye rolling is justified? Trying to maintain privacy is tiring, and I’m probably accomplishing exactly nothing by refusing to let WhatsApp have my address book. They can probably tell me what’s in it with 95% accuracy already, so it does feel a bit like making a stand to prove a point, except literally nobody cares. It would be like if I had a mustache and chose sustainably-produced mustache wax instead of the regular kind, and it turns out the sustainable-mustache-wax company is a subsidiary of Nestle anyway; that’s about the level of impact I’m having here by refusing to press certain buttons inside WhatsApp.