Whose App? The Controversy

 

Received as a meme from a number of friends

[The full-page advertisement on the front page of The Telegraph, Calcutta, of Jan 13th and the conversations of the past few days prompted me to put down a few thoughts in a spirit of humour tinged with trepidation.  WhatsApp would probably call the advertisement a clarification or a disclaimer or something equally interesting, but it seems to also indicate concern at the campsite!  In this blog post I might name some friends to whom I remain grateful or non-aligned as the case may be.  Hope you all take in good spirit, or with good spirits.]

Your FNG

As The Friendly Neighbourhood Guru (FNG for short, but not for long) I was asked my opinion on the raging controversy over WhatsApp's announcement about their change in their privacy policy.  Aruna, my favourite educationist, bounces questions off me whenever something digital happens, from Zoom to Doom. So began some sharing of opinions, mostly hearsay and unsupported information, with a tinge of personal bias.  And I saw it growing, with funny memes, direct attacks, opinionated arguments and all that -- on WhatsApp about WhatsApp.

Being bombarded over the last couple of weeks with opinions and memes, especially really mean memes, I floated a question in my blog group.  Here it is (all quotes are in italics)

In view of the increased hypertension regarding the apparent new WhatsApp privacy policy (explained in the graphic), some people have requested changing to Signal. What's your view?   

The reactions ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous.  Let me recount a few here and maybe generate more heat than light in the ongoing slugfest.  Not in any particular order and not tagged as 'sublime' or 'ridiculous'.  I leave that to your better judgement.  Meanwhile, my blog group continues on WhatsApp.

Privacy concerns? Of course it does, Google it.

Clayton, head firmly on shoulders as always, answered with a Rhetorical Question. Since when did 'people' get so hyper about their 'privacy' ??? -- all three question marks included. 

The next reaction came as a series of posts from Amit. He believes switching to Telegram is best as Signal 'has not evolved yet'. He also pointed out that Telegram has more features than Signal.  Not to mention that you can have 200,000 users in a group -- post Iron Curtain Tech, especially if you need to contact the Nation once in a way.  But we discussed it earnestly for awhile and some of his views are expressed later too.

Deane  brought in the FOMO element with a long, forwarded post that begins If you are planning to uninstall Whatsapp, here are some of the top features you will no longer have access to - which reminded me of our younger days.  "If you don't allow me to play, I will take my football and go home". Imagine, the Changers are going to lose out on WhatsApp Stories and Broadcast Lists (especially Good Morning messages, it reminds us). There are a whole lot of other things that WA can do that no one else can.  I had calls from my friendly neighbourhood newbies who were suddenly exposed to a whole lot of features without which they had lived blissfully unaware. Many of them, like Deane, are not regular on Facebook.

Samarjit says it doesn't matter.  In his words, About privacy I believe the day I bought an Android phone, it ended. Google has much more information about me across more sensitive platforms like work email and personal, pics etc. Not to mention that yet another platform would be confusing.

Shehnaaz, my good friend and former colleague, with Greek resignation to the fates, pointed out that "data is the currency of the internet", nothing is free, it's the new normal and we have to expect it from everyone, not only WhatsApp.  Deane concurs and asks, again rhetorically, "How come there is no hue and cry about Google... who have been snooping and tracking and following us for years ... even predicting and offering suggestions based on the content of our mails?"  How come, indeed?  Conspiracy, I hear you cry.  More of that later. 

Hobson's Choice

And then there was a flood of comparative literature (and images) on the various alternatives to WhatsApp with sharp focus on what data they collected and what they could do with it.  Security suddenly became a major concern.  As the picture above indicates, the comparisons were most obviously supporting a specific product and perhaps supported by the same people. Viber anyone? Check the ticks above.

Which app is more secure, Telegram or Signal?

The top contenders of the moment were being compared.  Lots of gobbledegook like Telegram and Signal both offer end to end Encryption (E2E), which means your chats cannot be read or hacked by anyone.  More confusing comparisons about size of files, number of people, forwards, backups, cloud storage and things you never bothered about till this story broke.  One of the cutest is that Signal can use WhatsApp groups to invite everyone to join Signal groups!  <heart emoji> 

Even the formidable Forbes compared Signal, iMessage, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. Too long to quote and too geeky to understand but the last line of the article (after 69 lines of fascinating lists) says:  The only personal data Signal stores is your phone number, and it makes no attempt to link that to your identity. This comes under the heading "Data stored by Signal - None".  I wasn't sure whether it was a pro or a con -- are they so incapable of mining data?  

A few of my smug friends, who shall not be named, informed me that they are 'already on Signal' or 'have been using it for months'.  I immediately installed Signal, searched for them, found two, buzzed them and received no response.  All was not lost.  I messaged them on WhatsApp to tell them I had buzzed them on Signal .. situation saved!  Two smileys later I knew that Signal had emojis.

Conspiracy is in the Air

Shalini says it's a promotional started by Elon Musk, simple.  On his Signal-signal their servers were flooded with requests. Kamal, firmly and rudely believes it's nothing but another attempt by someone he calls Suckerberg, to rule the world.  We spent a lot of time (on WhatsApp of course) discussing how the WhatsApp conspiracy with the Facebook Family was going to compromise all our lives.  I had heard rumours of involvement of local lads like Mukesh but not enough to interest an Arnab campaign.

To put us at our ease there was this forwarded message from Will Cathcart (incidentally the Head of WhatsApp at Facebook).  In his message he makes light of our fears, making a sarcastic comment on what valuable or secret data you are really trying to protect.. He assures us that all our data is end-to-end encrypted that includes all your naughty content too (another snide comment from a person who should know!)  Then he drops the facade and goes into advanced pfaff as to why WA cannot explain this in layman's terms. His last nasty comment (I'm beginning to dislike Mr Catcall or whatever) says And yes, feel free to forward this to your friends and family. I won’t charge any fees nor send your data to Facebook. Mark's arrogance is contagious!

From the Greeks to the Geeks

We went through the Greek fatalist responses - Que sera, sera - now let's hear the Geek Response.  Shirish concurs with the message where a friend of his (Fernando, hence que sera sera) asks one of those twenty questions games.  If you answer YES to anyone of them, then you haven't the right to discuss this issue of privacy.  I failed at the first question: Have you ever downloaded pirated software on your PC?  Smug snigger from Fernando.  Chink in the armour, so you can't blame WhatsApp for pirating your personal life (is that sounding political .. chinks, armour, ?)

Brainstorming is never complete without a word from Rajesh.  His first, last and lasting reaction was This is all hype. Vested interests.  Same as what happened when Zoom stocks took off through the roof ... everyone and his cousin tried to bring it down by misinformation. This is only going to affect Business users of WhatsApp.  Bill Flipcart of Facebook concurs with much more obfuscation in his goodnight message.

And finally, my go-to Geek, Tubby, gave me a one-liner: WhatsApp does monetise and Signal depends on donation. I like the latter.   And he adds Either way is fine by me in response to the query WA or Signal?  That solved all the problems in my head, I whipped out my device and loaded Signal onto my Jio number while WhatsApp continues on my VI number. <broad smile emoji>

The jury is still out.  WhatsApp, for some weird reason, is taking out full page ads in the newspapers!  So what is going to happen on February 8th?  As the guide to the Egyptian Mummy exhibit in the museum says, "Remains to be seen!"

[Please do comment and share if you think it's worth a laugh.  I did spare you the video by the techie wearing a Chennaiyan FC tee, didn't I?]