The reasons seems to be obvious, the new privacy policy.
Am I also part of the herd? Is it because everyone seems to be moving to it? Na I have been using signal for quite a time now but I mostly used it for saving notes to self, since nobody else seemed to use it. Even if you are trying it out just because Elon Musk tweeted “Use Signal” it’s fine, Signal is worth it. But most of us are going to be stuck just “trying it out” instead of moving to it as a primary mode of communication. So I am taking a step further and deleting my WhatsApp account.
Update : The mass movement to Signal and the pressure from the authorities did make Whatsapp delay the dates for the change. I have moved back to using Whatsapp, because I was disconnected with a lot of folks and I missed a lot of important announcements from college proffesors since they found it more convenient to convey things through Whatsapp. Regardless of that I believe in what I have expressed in this blog post and would appreciate your time reading this. Thank You.
I have been using WhatsApp and I am too reliant on it?
“It’s definitely hard to resist WhatsApp, though not impossible.” - quoting from a conversation regarding this entire fiasco at OSDC. And I agree to it. By leaving WhatsApp I will forcing a lot of folks to contact me through various other means.
Okay, I get it, but how to make the transition? How to convince my friends and family about it?
The point being we didn’t become reliant on WhatsApp overnight, it was a gradual process. People were sceptical about using it too back in it’s early stages. You just do it yourself, this will force them to contact you in other ways :)
Why do I care about privacy?
You already do. Everyone has some expectation of privacy. We don’t want to indiscriminately share every single aspect of our lives with everyone else. But I have nothing to hide . . If you wear clothes, use passwords, close doors, use envelopes, or sometimes speak softly, then you do have something to hide; you’re just having trouble understanding that you already do care about privacy.
Excerpts from r/privacy wiki, Please go through it once you have the time, I will link it again at the end of the post.
But Privacy is a Myth
100% Privacy is definitely a myth. But that doesn’t mean you will indiscriminately want to share everything. You need to be concerned in some way.
Managing one’s privacy is a vast, complex, and never-ending project that does not scale; it becomes virtually impossible to do comprehensively but if WhatsApp has the audacity to blatantly announce that it will be selling your data, why can’t we just leave it and let Facebook regret it cause Facebook is straight up evil.
But how will Signal sustain? What if Signal becomes just like others?
Signal is non-profit and open-source. Even if signal ends up selling somehow ( which it claims it can not ), someone will take the source code and just set up Signal 2.0. About it being sustainable, Wikipedia is the biggest example. It’s been alive for 20 years, is non-profit, doesn’t have advertisements and runs solely on donations. So I urge, if you are capable of donating, please donate to Signal - https://signal.org/donate/ or any other FOSS product you are using depending on how much you value your privacy. Even a small donation makes a lot of difference to them.
So how do I contact you?
I am available on most of the other platform, Signal would be the most convenient for you in my opinion or you can just go the old school way and SMS me :). If you are reading this and don’t have my mobile number, I am also available on Telegram and Matrix.
Conclusion
Try Signal, there’s still time before Whatsapp implements it’s new policy. Reflect on your online privacy in the mean time and make an informed decision on the same.