WhatsApp has been frequently a part of controversies and it’s not surprising, given that it is now owned by Facebook. From shady privacy policy revisions to global levels of outage, WhatsApp isn’t exactly suitable for privacy freaks. Hence, if you are looking for reasons to get off the service, we give you three reasons to do so.
3 reasons too look beyond WhatsApp
1.It’s owned by Facebook!
Facebook and data privacy don’t go hand-in-hand and hence, anything that belongs to Facebook is always looked upon a data hogger. After getting bought in 2014, WhatsApp has seen a lot of changes in terms of features but privacy policies have remained untouched so far.
However, the messenger service was involved in controversy after it released its update privacy policy earlier in 2021. WhatsApp wanted to share some data with Facebook and advertisers for business purposes. Loyal users grew sceptical and started jumping on alternative messenger services like Telegram and Signal. Even though WhatsApp repeatedly explained its new policies, it couldn’t reinstate the faith its users had prior to this episode.
2. Reads too much data
Every app needs access to your data to function but WhatsApp and the notorious Facebook Messenger seek a lot more than required. On Apple’s App Store, WhatsApp is shown collecting data on your shopping habits, financial info, Usage data (time last used) and diagnostics data (device details) apart from the basic ones. The Facebook Messenger’s list of required data engulfs that of Facebook.
On the other hand, rival platform Signal does not seek access to any data. WhatsApp says it shares info with Facebook when it “is necessary for the purpose of promoting safety, security and integrity”. At the same time, it also denies sharing data with Facebook for marketing purposes. Technically, the end-to-end encryption keeps chats safe but WhatsApp’s changing policies are often contradictory and confusing.
3. Suffers same issues as other Facebook services
Two days ago, Facebook’s servers went down and as a result, all associated service were affected. WhatsApp was down too and for the entire period, users could not communicate with each for the 6-hour period. Other services like Signal and Telegram were running, however, and they were not affected by this outage. Not to say that alternative services don’t suffer from outages but WhatsApp’s fate relies on Facebook’s health, which shouldn’t be the case as it is a messenger service.
However, WhatsApp has gained enormous popularity across the world in the last few years and most of your personal and professional circle is likely to stick to WhatsApp for communications. Moreover, it is the only largest messenger service that ahs end-to-end encryption; Telegram doesn’t offer that while iMessage is only limited to iPhones and iPads.