[hulitu]

> Is "companies are using your reading history to target ads" really the same level of dangerous as "your government wants to read all your messages"?

Yes. Because the line between companies and government is very thin. (government has access to those companie's data, more or less legaly).

[konschubert]

But these companies do not collect chat data. Whatsapp is end to end encrypted. It is my government who wants to break that encryption.

[josefx]

Except from what I can find WhatsApp seems to have an automated content moderation system that will automatically flag and forward messages to Meta for review. So the ability to bypass that encryption is already hardwired into the app.

[anilgulecha]

>will automatically flag and forward messages to Meta

Citation please. Specially on automatically..

[Lio]

> these companies do not collect chat data.

These companies say they don't collect chat data but they also say they follow local laws and you see from above that they obviously, deliberately don't.

Does "end to end encryption" really mean anything if you control decryption at both ends of the connection?

It's just harder to intercept over the wire that's all.

[edgyquant]

Yes there are more than one shady way to collect data. Other government, and your own, can access these companies profile of you.