Who moved my … messenger app?
First thing first: If you are confused about whether to shift out of WhatsApp or not after the recent WhatsApp privacy policy controversy, delete FB Messenger app first. Why? At the end of this post.
If you are looking for an alternative to WhatsApp, the top 2 preferences amongst the privacy concerned users have been Signal and Telegram for a while. The biggest plus point for both of them is — they have shared their source code for everyone to see, thus removing doubts about any hidden nonsense. WhatsApp or FB messenger could never take that dare. Also they are (so far) not connected to any big tech or under revenue pressure. Telegram founder Durov in fact had shared a vision in late December 2020 about how they plan to generate revenue in coming days through business users while keeping the current version free forever without any ad support. Signal has not shared any monetization plan as yet.
My personal choice has been #Signal for a while, however #Telegram is also a decent choice thanks to its many user friendly features and channels. While many users were using it over the last couple of years, the traffic skyrocketed since early January 2021, thanks to the privacy policy fiasco that WhatsApp unleashed upon itself. Also some of the prominent tech leaders openly voiced support for Signal, including Jack @ Twitter (here) and Elon Musk @ Tesla (here).
To make matters worse for WhatsApp, there has been reports about WhatsApp groups becoming available on Google search, thus jeopardizing all the sense of privacy that we had about the chats. Many organizations have been using WhatsApp group chats for critical discussions, which made them freak out at the possibility of sudden leakage of all such discussions.
Many have posed this question: Do I need to bother even if WhatsApp really captures a lot of data about me? After all we have already accepted sharing our personal data through various social media platforms.
My counter question to them has been: Given a choice, why should I not choose a platform which does NOT capture any of my personal data at all (Signal) or a bare minimum footprint (Telegram) without any loss of feature?
There has been questions about Telegram having its Russian origin with HQ in Dubai, which Telegram has responded to saying they have moved headquarters multiple times across the globe to ensure getting an ecosystem where user data privacy doesn’t come under government attack. Telegram has also been accused of becoming a platform for sharing contents breaking copyright laws with slow response against such violations.
Now about FB messenger: FB messenger app collects maximum data about you compared to all other chat apps available as recently found. Also there are strong allegations that FB messenger app listens to your conversations and pushes ads accordingly. If you can not get out of FB messenger due to your fan base/friends/other reasons, you may like to use it from browser only.
Taking the liberty of modifying what Spencer Johnson said in his famous book “Who Moved My Cheese?”, we must believe — “Technology moves on and so should we”.
