Update 2 Feb 2021: Like me, many have removed whatsapp from their phones and went to either Signal and/ or Telegram. Since I’ve posted this article, came to me the awareness that Moxis, the founder and boss of Signal, has been helped by a friend of him working at the CIA. Also heard that the CIA can know our conversations.
As for Telegram, also read that Putin didn’t want it in Russia because they couldn’t read the conversations…until recently.
So, all in all, as my wife says, you can assume that our conversations are listened to big brother.
So, for now, it doesn’t change my decision, because on one hand yes, the CIA or any government might be able to know who and what we say to everyone, on the other one I’m 100% sure the CEO of Facebook is a criminal, censoring what is not convenient for his and his friends agenda. So, Whatsapp, I’m not going to help you any longer!
As you probably know, freedom is the most important value for me. 2020 has been quite a challenging year for many, with some basic freedoms taken away for most of us.
Now, the good news is: “attention goes where energy flows.” Meaning that if we feed ideas that promote freedom, then freedom will prevail.
This is at the core of my decision to remove Whatsapp and switch to Signal.
About Whatsapp
As you know, Whatsapp is an awesome tool originally created to contact each others easily. I’ve been using it for years and enjoyed being able to call my friends from any country to any other, basically for “free”.
One of the things I’ve learned reading Life After Google, by George Gilder, is that when something is free, this means the product is you! The big issue is the collection of data from our conversations and not only.
IN OTHER WORDS, THE BUSINESS STRATEGY OF THE GAFAM (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft) IS TO GATHER DATA FROM EACH OF US, SO THEY CAN SELL US ANYTHING WITH TARGETED ADS. Reminder: Whatsapp has been bought by Facebook in 2014 for 19 billion USD. Here is an article about why its founders ask us to remove Facebook from our phones.
If it were not enough trouble, there is also the possibility that these huge companies have been helped by secret services like the CIA in order to track what we are doing. These days, these companies have more power than many countries around the globe. And free speech is under attack, as we’ve seen this week (early Jan 2021) with the ban of the president of the United States from Twitter, Facebook, Youtube…well, all of them! While Parler, the best alternative to Twitter for those who value free speech, has been temporarily shut down by its Amazon servers.
Instead of Whatsapp, I’m now using Signal
Signal offers the same tools…except this time nothing is tracked! You are saying hello to a world where surveillance is not the norm anymore!
While Whatsapp and Signal supposedly both cannot know what we talk about during our conversation, the comparison stops here.
Whatsapp collects metadata, meaning who are your contacts, how long do you use the app, and much much more. I recommend you check this page that compares Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp for their data collection.
As you can see, Signal doesn’t collect anything.
What this means is that when you are in Signal, you help promoting freedom as a value for where the world is going. And I thank you for this.
Last and not the least, I recommend this Joe Rogan interview with the amazing man behind Signal, Moxie Marlinspike.
They go quite deep into the philosophical consequences of Big Brother controlling us. A pretty good awakening conversation!
If you wish to contact me on Signal, let me know!