Do we really have to get off Whatsapp?
When my son graduated from primary school, I somehow expected that the endless stream of messages in the dozens of different parent app groups would really be behind us now. Of course, I was completely wrong. It soon became clear that parents with children in secondary school also just like to discuss with each other via Whatsapp. But then there are also the work messages, family groups, colleagues, friends, sports clubs... I sometimes wonder how it is possible that we are not all completely going crazy. We have also gotten used to it by now. But now there is a whole new element added: the ‘shall we switch’ messages.
With the first message, I thought ‘what is this about?’
When it was first suggested in one of the app groups to switch to Signal, I didn't really see the importance of it. We are never completely anonymous on the internet, so why would we suddenly act so fearful? I follow the news closely, so it's not that I had no idea about everything that is going on at the moment, and in this case, I mean especially the developments in America. The fact that tech billionaires now indirectly have power in America is strange to say the least, and that also makes many people hesitant to use the services of Meta (Instagram, Facebook, Whatsapp) any longer. Especially via Whatsapp, we would send so much personal data back and forth that we put ourselves in danger. Meta, which Mark Zuckerberg is in charge of, is known for violating privacy on a large scale. The company has already received a fine of 1.2 billion euros because data from European users of Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp were forwarded to America without permission. When you think about it, it's quite bizarre that we have massively deleted the Temu app for this reason, but still casually use Whatsapp.
So it's actually not such a crazy idea to switch
Whatsapp apparently even keeps track of who you send messages to, how often you do it, and at what times of the day you do it. Switching to an app like Signal is especially a good idea because it does not collect this kind of information. Nothing is tracked at all, all your messages are encrypted (and thus unreadable to third parties), your data is not sold to anyone, and Signal is not owned by big tech companies that now know how to exert so much influence on President Trump. So yes, we can think: we'll see how that goes. But I have already downloaded the Signal app, and I notice around me that I am not the only one.
