
“How do I choose not to share my account information with Facebook?” - SnaKeZ
https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/general/26000016
======
dang
There are three active threads about this, the present one and these other
two:

"WhatsApp is going to share your phone number with Facebook":
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12358751](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12358751)

"Looking ahead for WhatsApp":
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12358205](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12358205)

Normally we'd merge the threads, but the discussions are large and come from
three different perspectives, so that might not be best. HN practice is to
have one front-page thread at a time about a story, but if you're concerned
about the topic you might want to check in on the other discussions.

------
kristianc
This is an incredibly ugly dark pattern.

The 'share information with Facebook' nugget is hidden behind a toggle at the
bottom of the screen, and will be guaranteed to be missed by the 99% of users
who just want to talk to their friends.

Then, once you've agreed to the terms and conditions, you've got a completely
arbitrary 30 days to read an online article which tells you what you've signed
up for before WhatsApp is irrevocably sharing your data with Facebook.

You can build an incredibly accurate picture of people's lives from metadata
alone - WhatsApp know it and Facebook know it.

Not only that - when WhatsApp start building out these 'brand' relationships
which will look a lot like helpful information at first - you'll be loading
your data into that brand's custom FB audience too. And you won't have an opt
out because, y'know, reasons.

This is very obviously not the WhatsApp that promised not to fuck with its
users when Facebook bought it out.

~~~
0xmohit
Most don't like hearing this: if you don't want your personal information to
be shared, don't use these "social media" tools.

I suspect that you'd be familiar with LinkedIn dark patterns [0] too.

[0] [https://medium.com/@danrschlosser/linkedin-dark-
patterns-3ae...](https://medium.com/@danrschlosser/linkedin-dark-
patterns-3ae726fe1462)

~~~
treebeard901
"Don't use these tools if you value privacy" is not that far off from "If you
have nothing to hide, why are you afraid of surveillance?" An observed life is
not a free life. Many people have to use social media to communicate with
family, work associates, etc... In many cases, facebook messaging has replaced
methods of communication that did not rely on the content or metadata of
messages for profit. All that really matters is if this was legit and FB
assumed people would have no problem with it then they would not have hidden
it.

~~~
ed312
Is email not sufficient to communicate with family, work associates, etc.?

~~~
derekp7
I've thought about building something that gives a social network type
experience that is built on top of email. Any status update would get sent out
to an email list of your connections, and all the emails could be put in a
specific mail folder using standard rules. A front end app would then scan
that folder and give you a personalized page that represents the latest status
based on what it sees in that folder. The raw messages themselves may contain
various control messages (such as "friend requests" and "drop requests", but
otherwise can be directly viewable too. But the main interface would be from a
front-end app that runs on the user's PC or mobile device.

~~~
gavinpc
I love this idea (if only for the motivation behind it).

How would your "normal" mail client filter out the messages that are for this
app? People have lots of different mail clients which they might not be able
(or willing) to configure. Or would you expect a dedicated address.

~~~
softawre
The problem, of course, is who builds/maintains this, how do they get paid,
and how do you pay the server fees.

~~~
derekp7
The app would run on the user's local PC or phone, and it would access data
directly from their mailbox (and create a local DB from that data). So no
backend server to worry about.

~~~
gavinpc
Without a third-party managing associations, how do you maintain that
"friendship" is consensual? In other words, how do you prevent "I have your
email address" from meaning "you're my friend now."

~~~
derekp7
When you send a friend request to someone, their stuff is shared with you only
if they accept the request on their end. If they reject the friend request,
then anything coming from you that they don't want can be handled as spam (the
client side software would just filter the content itself in that case).

------
AceJohnny2
Man, remember the late 90s and early 2000s, when the IM scene was a mess of
incompatible networks like ICQ and AIM and MSN Messenger, and people were like
"fuck this" and came up with this protocol that was interoperable with all the
others through gateways and also it was extendable, and we could all be happy
together?...

/grump

The worst part is that WhatsApp is actually _based on_ Jabber >:(

~~~
omginternets
I recently started looking into XMPP again a few days ago. I have a few ideas
for projects built on top thereof.

Can anybody recommend XMPP servers? I know duckduckgo has an XMPP service up
and running, but I can't seem to find any relevant API documentation. All I
found was this [0], which doesn't go into details about encryption settings
and isn't very useful for programmatic interaction.

[0] [https://duck.co/blog/post/2/using-pidgin-with-xmpp-
jabber](https://duck.co/blog/post/2/using-pidgin-with-xmpp-jabber)

~~~
hointytointy
Conversations.im has made great progress in making XMPP usable on mobile
devices, although its services don't seem ready for public adoption quite yet.
There are very few XMPP servers which support the XEPs Conversations does so
while federation is theoretically possible, it is not yet a reality.

[https://account.conversations.im/](https://account.conversations.im/)

~~~
omginternets
Thanks. I can't really justify using a paid XMPP service, though. I was hoping
for something indefinitely free.

(Maybe I should look into running my own server...)

~~~
erlehmann_
You do not need an account at conversations.im – the app works without it.

~~~
omginternets
Ah, okay. I misunderstood. Cool!

~~~
arm
Yep. In addition to that, it’s also FOSS¹ and you aren’t limited to only
getting it from the Google Play Store; it’s also distributed² on F-Droid³ too.
One thing to note though is that the version of Conversations on F-Droid
doesn’t support push notifications, since that functionality uses _Google
Cloud Notifications_.

――――――

¹ —
[https://github.com/siacs/Conversations](https://github.com/siacs/Conversations)

² —
[https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=eu.siacs.convers...](https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=eu.siacs.conversations)

³ —
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-Droid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-Droid)

------
Cozumel
It's kind of pointless, Facebook owns Whatsapp so they have all that info
anyway.

'The Facebook family of companies will still receive and use this information
for other purposes such as improving infrastructure and delivery systems,
understanding how our services or theirs are used, securing systems, and
fighting spam, abuse, or infringement activities.'

~~~
0xmohit
Exactly. Moreover, a look at the permissions required by Facebook app would
reveal how much information it collects about you:

    
    
      Device & app history
    
        retrieve running apps
    
      Identity
    
        find accounts on the device
        add or remove accounts
        read your own contact card
    
      Calendar
    
        read calendar events plus confidential information
        add or modify calendar events and send email to guests without owners' knowledge
    
      Contacts
    
        find accounts on the device
        read your contacts
        modify your contacts
    
      Location
    
        approximate location (network-based)
        precise location (GPS and network-based)
    
      SMS
    
        read your text messages (SMS or MMS)
    
      Phone
    
        directly call phone numbers
        read call log
        read phone status and identity
        write call log
    
      Photos/Media/Files
    
        read the contents of your USB storage
        modify or delete the contents of your USB storage
    
      Storage
    
        read the contents of your USB storage
        modify or delete the contents of your USB storage
    
      Camera
    
        take pictures and videos
    
      Microphone
    
        record audio
    
      Wi-Fi connection information
    
        view Wi-Fi connections
    
      Device ID & call information
    
        read phone status and identity
    
      Other
    
        download files without notification
        adjust your wallpaper size
        receive data from Internet
        view network connections
        create accounts and set passwords
        read battery statistics
        send sticky broadcast
        change network connectivity
        connect and disconnect from Wi-Fi
        expand/collapse status bar
        full network access
        change your audio settings
        read sync settings
        run at startup
        reorder running apps
        set wallpaper
        draw over other apps
        control vibration
        prevent device from sleeping
        toggle sync on and off
        install shortcuts
        read Google service configuration

~~~
angry_octet
What happens if you deny it those permissions? (Android >= v6).

~~~
schwuk
I've turned them all off and nothing has broken so far, but then again I'm a
pretty passive user of Facebook.

------
skrowl
Or... you know... just use something like Telegram that isn't owned by
Facebook. Their data-sharing / privacy policy is pretty simple
[https://telegram.org/privacy](https://telegram.org/privacy)

 _1\. Sharing data_

 _We never share your data with anyone. No._

~~~
gyosko
If only more people used Telegram.. I love it, but only a couple of friends
use it.

~~~
skrowl
There was a serious FUD campaign started by one of the developers of now
competing app Signal a few years ago. Now if you mention Telegram on Reddit
you're immediately bombed with "OMG TELEGRAM CRYPTO IS BROKEN!" even though 0
people on earth have ever provably decrypted a Telegram message. They even
offered a $300K bounty where you could act as the server... no takers.

~~~
MatthiasP
Does Telegram use E2E encryption by default now, yes or no?

~~~
makomk
Probably not, but the hilarious thing is that a year or so after attacking
Telegram for that, the developers of Signal took a substantial chunk of cash
from Google to promote Allo as using Signal Protocol and end to end
encryption, even though it's disabled by default so Google can mine your chat
history for ad targeting (and enabling it has the inconvenient side effect of
disabling your own local chat history).

Basically, it's about the cash. Signal's business model is to convince
everyone that their protocol is the only secure one and charge everyone to
licence it. If that means promoting non-E2E services that store and mine chat
history, that's fine so long as they pay up.

~~~
geofft
> charge everyone to licence it

What?

The protocol is publicly described. They've blogged about it. I can imagine
people being able to reconstruct it from memory.

The first Google result for "signal protocol license" is
[https://whispersystems.org/blog/license-
update/](https://whispersystems.org/blog/license-update/) , clarifying that
it's under GPLv3 (i.e., patent grant) with an exception for the App Store. Has
anyone paid money to license the protocol? Has Signal asked for money? Is it
even possible to give them money for the protocol?

~~~
bad_user
GPLv3 is cool as open source goes, but is pretty restrictive. Basically you
can't link to it and distribute your app without it being open source. A
company like Google can probably not use it.

~~~
geofft
What I meant with GPLv3 is "and they are even willing to grant any patent
rights to the general public". I don't know if they hold patents on it, but if
they either don't, or are willing to license them freely, then you can
implement the protocol from the public documentation of it.

~~~
bad_user
That's not true. The patents grant in GPLv3 or other licenses (like APL) only
holds if you're actually using that project in your work. So either you fork
the GPLv3 project, and comply with a compatible license, or you don't have a
patents grant.

This is basically why Google could be sued by Oracle, because Dalvik and their
class library based on Apache Harmony were not a fork of OpenJDK.

Of course I cannot speak for Signal's protocol. Maybe it has no traps. I'm
just commenting on that license. It's a strong license that makes some
demands: good fit open source but bad for Google.

~~~
geofft
Sorry, I am being unclear. I don't mean that GPLv3 gives you a patent grant
for all implementations, yes. I mean that _the willingness to license code
under GPLv3_ means that there's an upper bound on how much Open Whisper
Systems cares about licensing the protocol for money.

Which brings me back to the original question—why do we think that OWS's
pushing of Signal Protocol is about money? Yes, I expect that for Allo they
got paid by Google to write and maintain some code. But I don't think that
their general claim "Signal Protocol is good crypto for everyone solving this
problem" is motivated by money, because so many people solving this problem
_could_ use the GPLv3 version.

------
nicolas_t
My problem with whatsapp is that there's no way to use it without giving
access to my entire contact list to the app. And that's out of the question
for me.

~~~
angryasian
I thought with Android Marshmallow and iOS you can deny access to contacts. I
guess if you're not on Marshmallow or higher, you're not going to get this
benefit

~~~
Leon
A lot of apps these days will not run unless they get access to the data they
request. What I would like to see is android having the ability to give empty
sets of information if so chosen instead of denying access, or to
compartmentalize applications access to shared resources more.

------
Aissen
_The Facebook family of companies will still receive and use this information
for other purposes such as improving infrastructure and delivery systems,
understanding how our services or theirs are used, securing systems, and
fighting spam, abuse, or infringement activities._

------
chinathrow
So when you remove that tickbox "Share my account info" \- your data still
gets shared:

"The Facebook family of companies will still receive and use this information
for other purposes such as improving infrastructure and delivery systems,
understanding how our services or theirs are used, securing systems, and
fighting spam, abuse, or infringement activities."

Never does it say, you won't get ads. But if you share, you will get "improved
ads".

Am I reading this right?

~~~
overcast
I would just assume anything you do on the Facebook family of applications, is
using your information to maximize revenue. Regardless of what tick boxes you
check.

------
omginternets
I don't have the _Share my Account_ option on Android.

~~~
cosmotron
Perhaps you accepted the new terms more than 30 days ago and instead of
showing a greyed-out checkbox, they simply hide it altogether.

~~~
MatthiasP
More likely he hasn't received the relevant update yet.

~~~
MicroBerto
Or maybe because Facebook app isn't installed? I don't have it on mine, so
maybe they're not 'linked'

------
jamisteven
Linkability at its best. Been saying for years that FB is trying to help
establish the single-sign-on for all to access the internet. Thats why every
major email and social outlet are demanding you input your phone number and
secondary email alongside your existing account info. Eventually this will
help the government know who is behind each IP address. No need to keep
avoiding the phone number security prompt at the top of FB anymore, they
already have it through their acquisiton of whatsApp, what a shame.

------
hointytointy
How much do you want to bet they will make sharing mandatory in 6-12 months?
Opting-out is a fig leaf to head off bad press in the short term.

------
xanadohnt
Are we supposed to congratulate WhatsApp for doing something that should be
expected with 1.0? Furthermore, your default is incorrect; sharing info is
opt-in.

~~~
jethro_tell
> your default is incorrect; sharing info is opt-in.

Uh, I mean, that's the whole point of facebook.

------
vthallam
So this was quite expected anyway. Though initially the acquisition seemed to
be a defensive one where FB prevents Wechat kind of features coming from
Whatsapp, the amount of data whatsapp has, is a treasure trove for all the
advertisers and as a public company, FB just did what is expected by the
shareholders.

But it's kinda scary that emperor Zuck has so much power over the people, like
FB/Messenger/Whatsapp/Instagram are the top apps everyone uses. I am glad
Snapchat didn't sell out.

~~~
ffggvv
So much power? You give him power. Just delete your facebook account and
uninstall their apps!

~~~
throwanem
And watch your friendships grow stale, lose touch with your family members,
opt out of knowing about upcoming events...

The phrase "network effect" exists for a reason. Where people don't think
about keeping in touch with others in any terms other than Facebook, refusing
to play along with Facebook comes with serious consequences.

~~~
MrZongle2
_" And watch your friendships grow stale, lose touch with your family members,
opt out of knowing about upcoming events..."_

And how exactly do you think these things worked _before_ Facebook?

"Friends" who don't want to make the effort to stay in touch outside of a
dead-simple social app aren't friends, anyway.

~~~
tgsovlerkhgsel
"worked" is the key word here.

When the letters were the common way to contact people, people would contact
you by letter. If you refused to communicate in different ways than with
letters, people would communicate less with you than with others, because it
would be a pain in the ass. They'd organize a party on short notice, and then
realize that the letter won't reach you in time (or that they don't have
envelopes and stamps anymore because they no longer send letters).

The same applies to this sort of app today, sadly.

~~~
throwanem
Only more so. Back when people kept their address books in actual _books_ ,
you wouldn't, for example, miss getting a wedding invitation, because you
weren't sent one, because the people getting married forgot to think about
anything except their Facebook contacts list when they made their invitation
list. Because everyone's on Facebook.

I almost caved, the second time that happened. What stopped me was being
prompted for my email account credentials, so Facebook could mine my more than
decade-long correspondence for social graph data. I know enough about abusive
relationships not to overlook an opening boundary test like that. So that was
the end of my Facebook experiment. In any case, by that point the damage was
probably done.

Someone else here said something about having his Facebook departure be a
conversation starter. Doesn't always work that way. When I tell people about
that email prompt, they just look at me funny and go "you know you can skip
that, right?" Which, of course, I do know, but see above re: abusive
relationships. Maybe I can talk my way out of taking a punch this time, but
every time?

That metaphor doesn't seem to cut much ice with anyone, though. No idea why.
Maybe it's a little over the top. Maybe people are just so accustomed to think
about Facebook as part of the environment, and take it totally for granted,
that it doesn't occur to them to regard what I'm saying as anything but
incomprehensibly weird. Maybe I'm an obstreperous pain in the ass. I'm sure at
least one of those is true. But who knows? I mean, I don't ask; I just steer
the conversation somewhere more mutually enjoyable, because I go to bars to
drink and enjoy talking with people, not to pretend to be Richard Stallman.

~~~
intended
Yeah, it is too over the top for most people. I don't move in tech circles,
and the few friends who I do speak to about this, tend to dismiss this as tin
foil hattery.

------
CodeMichael
I'm trying to find more info about [https://wire.com](https://wire.com)

They would seem to be doing all the right things, such as OTR and not rolling
their own protocols, but I've only been able to find a couple of opinions and
nothing concrete.

The fact that they've made effort to open source it and are letting people
write their own clients for it is encouraging, but not proof that it's a solid
system.

~~~
newscracker
I discovered Wire a few months ago and have been impressed with its feature
set. While Wire states that it is using axolotl ratchet, note that it is not
the same as the Signal protocol used by Signal. Apparently Wire took the
axolotl ratchet (the one Signal started with) and created a custom version for
its own use. Moxie stated something of this sort in a comment recently on HN.
There have also been some conflicts between Wire and OpenWhisperSystems
(searching the web, in addition to reading up on Wire's site, will show you
different sides of this).

To avoid confusion about axolotl ratchet and its usage, OpenWhisperSystems
changed the name of the protocol used to Signal protocol in March. [1]

[1]: [https://whispersystems.org/blog/signal-inside-and-
out/](https://whispersystems.org/blog/signal-inside-and-out/)

~~~
CodeMichael
Thanks for the response. My sense from the information is that the protocols
are extremely similar, the implementation is the primary difference.

------
nashashmi
I am reading the opt out agreement as far too specific. It says do not share
info with Facebook for improved ads experience. MEANING SHARE info WITH
FACEBOOK anyways, even if you are not interested in ads.

I don't want any of my info shared. Yet there is no way to opt out of it.

~~~
throwawayReply
FTA

> The Facebook family of companies will still receive and use this information
> for other purposes such as improving infrastructure and delivery systems,
> understanding how our services or theirs are used, securing systems, and
> fighting spam, abuse, or infringement activities.

So you can't not share.

------
plg
If only there existed a peer to peer solution that doesn't require trusting a
central host

~~~
redditmigrant
A fundamental limitation of the peer to peer setup for messaging is the lack
of a reliable way to send a message while your contact is offline. If your
answer to that is to have intermediaries that are always available and can
store and forward, you run into issues of needing a lot of these
intermediaries in a mobile centric(low power, intermittently online) world.

------
peatmoss
I had few enough people who I've communicated with via Whatsapp that I was
able to simply delete my account. I hope that means they'll actually purge my
data rather than sharing it with Facebook.

This is one of the problems of digital identity--privacy has a latent value.
The company you choose to share data with today, may choose choose to share
with / merge with a third party in the future.

------
slantedview
Having removed the app a while back but not formally deleted my account, seems
like I have to re-install, dig up my account again, then opt out.

What a hassle.

------
chinathrow
I don't see the data sharing opt-out thingie with FB as the big news today.

The big news is that your eye-balls are officially for sale now. Marketing is
specifically mentioned as a new form of communication towards the users. No
banner ads (yet), but other formats.

It was good, while it lasted.

PS to WhatsApp: If you manage to launch a no-data-sale privacy option for
x$/y, I signup in a heartbeat.

------
ffggvv
Guys, there's only one solution. Delete your accounts and uninstall the apps.
That's it!

Here's the link to delete your account.
[https://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account](https://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account)

~~~
newscracker
I deleted my WhatsApp account the moment I learned it was acquired by
Facebook. Unfortunately, I have to use Facebook for certain purposes to reach
certain people. So Facebook very likely has more information (including my
phone number) from other Facebook users and WhatsApp users who have me in
their contact lists.

------
gyosko
What if I don't have that option in Whatsapp? Does it mean you can't opt-out
after 30 days?

~~~
jayess
That's how it looks to me. I don't have the option.

~~~
gyosko
Probably they didn't update the app yet?

------
nanospeck
I wonder, what are the odds of success if someone starts a paid social network
say for 5$/month. Ad-free, no-snopping, secure social network. E.g. Diaspora
pod with good UI and more features. Would you be willing to pay for it?

------
nanospeck
I thought an SSL encryption would not let 'anyone' else read your messages. So
that means even if whatsapp promises SSL encryptin, they can read our
messages? Is it technically possible? Forgive my ignorance.

~~~
ino
from [https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/](https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/)

 _\- Your messages are yours, and we can’t read them. We’ve built privacy,
end-to-end encryption, and other security features into WhatsApp. We don’t
store your messages once they’ve been delivered. When they are end-to-end
encrypted, we and third parties can’t read them._

So they can share location, phone number, contact book, maybe chat group names
if they're not encrypted, and maybe the people participating in those groups,
the online/offline status, who and when you call, what else am I missing?

------
Zhenya
I just got the prompt to accept the new terms.

1) you did not have to scroll to opt out. 2) opting out brought up a toast
saying "when you tap 'agree', your account info will be used to improve your
Facebook ads and product experiences" 3) there was a " X not now" option in
the top right corner.

I chose that.

Edit: no app update was required. I'm guessing in the future, the could push
ads the same way

------
fx85ms
This seems like a potentially stupid question, but the link only shows how to
do it on an android device. The terms sprung up on me in the iOS app (I have
yet to update it) and thankfully I found the hidden toggle button. There does
not seem to be an equivalent way to turn off the sharing of data on my iOS
device, so if anyone has found a way, please tell me about it.

------
StanislavPetrov
You can't. According to them, even if you opt out:

> __The Facebook family of companies will still receive and use this
> information __for other purposes such as improving infrastructure and
> delivery systems, understanding how our services or theirs are used,
> securing systems, and fighting spam, abuse, or infringement activities.

------
THROANN77
hi, am Anderson, i had my friend help me hack my ex's email, facebook,
whatsapp,and his phone cause i suspected he was cheating. all he asked for was
a his phone number. he's email is (cyberlord7714@gmail.com)..IF u need help
tell him Anderson referred you to him and he'll help. Am sure his going to
help you do it, good luck

------
tailrecursion
If people want to use snazzy services but don't want to pay, and then outlaw
collecting private information, presumably the owner of the snazzy service
will find some more complicated or secret way to monetize its users?

------
kevincox
It's interesting that Facebook Messenger still doesn't have ads. It even
supports using it without a Facebook account (although you do need a phone
number and it appears to be slightly limited)

------
Qantourisc
I cannot wait on Matrix protocol, I just hope it will be used.

------
prplhaz4
sooo, apparently there's only a limited time period (30d) where you are
allowed to opt out of the data sharing...

>> After you agree to our updated Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, you
will have an additional 30 days to make this choice by going to Settings >
Account > Share my account info in the app. If you do not want your account
information shared with Facebook to improve your Facebook ads and products
experiences, you can uncheck the box or toggle the control.

------
et-al
There's already two threads on the front page about the WhatsApp TOS change,
do we really need a third when this link is already in one of the top-voted
comments?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12358205](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12358205)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12358751](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12358751)

Duplicate threads like this just dilute the conversation especially when the
comments made here are already opinions voiced elsewhere.

------
titomc
Ironically, I just whatsapped all my "non-IT" friends on how to "not agree" by
finding the hidden data sharing checkbox.

------
wonkaWonka

      The Facebook family of companies 
      will still receive and use this 
      information for other purposes...
    

Answer:

 _YOU DO NOT._

------
harry8
I wonder how Moxie feels about being used in what looks to be a pretty
spectacular privacy bait-and-switch.

------
Zhenya
One question no-one is answering. Will this be pushed in the future, or have
we accepted the terms earlier?!

------
ViProvoft
My phone does not show 'share my account info' option... Please can you help
me

------
ygra
So what does this change mean if you're using WhatsApp while not having a
Facebook account?

------
mbloom1915
that's not a serious question right? why you are even using anything Fb
touches/owns/operates is the real issue

------
DavideNL
in Dutch we have a word for this, called "poppenkast".

Translated literally it means "puppet-show"...

------
amaks
Simple, just don't use WhatsApp.

~~~
newscracker
I'm not sure how much help this would be, but also make sure to delete your
WhatsApp account before you stop using it (instead of just deleting the app
and abandoning the account).

------
et-al
> _the discussions are large and come from three different perspectives_

The discussions have ballooned, but having read the other two in the morning,
this one just feels like a rehash of the same privacy concerns folks have
raised. And for anyone reading about possible solutions to their concerns,
they'd have to jump between 2-3 different threads now.

I'm glad there's at least WhatsApp thread is on front page for everyone's
sake, but personally I felt like the _Looking ahead for WhatsApp_ discussion
covered much of what's being said here. The difference is that poster didn't
have as good of a title and submitted it when much of the West Coast was still
asleep.

Also, while this site doesn't have the resources to comb and diff each new
thread to make sure it's not a dupe, I wish more users would point this out
when it does happen. At the very least, thanks for pointing out the two
existing threads, but we shouldn't be afraid of merging threads to make it
easier for future users to reference (if they do).

~~~
dang
Fair enough, but I don't see a clearly better solution. Do you?

Since this is a bit meta I've detached the subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12361031](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12361031)
and marked it off-topic.

~~~
et-al
Edited my comment to clarify some things, but a solution is that if someone
points out a thread is a potential dupe, be more open to the possibility of
merging that discussion?

Especially since the bulk other thread was already talking about privacy
concerns and most users would go down that route.

Also, you already do a great job moderating here, but this is just one of
those few situations where I'm in disagreement with you on this particular
instance.

------
chad_strategic
\-->How do I choose not to share my account information with Facebook?

Answer: Don't use Facebook.

~~~
CaptSpify
Not true. They still build shadow profiles of you.

~~~
chad_strategic
That's the NSA funded wing of Facebook. (Don't tell anybody)

