I’ve posted this in Romanian, but realized an English version would be better here on micro.blog…
So I’ve decided to leave WhatsApp behind and close my account. And I switched to Signal. I was already on Telegram, but Signal is way better from a privacy point of view…
I’ve tried convincing my friends and family. Some accepted, some didn’t. But, as I’ve said to them, we’re free to choose what we want in life.
Those who didn’t want to leave told me I was paranoid, that Facebook is not the bad guy, that they don’t care because they have nothing to hide, etc.
I know the current changes to the privacy policy weren’t really that important (we’re mostly clarifications actually) and that Facebook already has everything about me at this moment. I know this, and it’s easy to see it for yourself. Just export WhatsApp data, and you’ll see all the infos they have. But I don’t want to be their data milking cow anymore. My data is my data (and yeah, I know: if something it’s free, you’re the product).
Besides, Facebook is known for lying a lot and not just lately… this “bug” made me laugh, or if you have the time you can take a look at this timeline of some of Facebook’s privacy issues
I don’t want a future built on all the data that we freely and stupidly gave to all these companies. A future where they have all of our data, and they’ll be able to know what our next step will be. I don’t want this.
If I can take a step in a different direction I’ll do it. So this is what I’m doing now.
I don’t want my kids to be “sketched” with the help of the data I’ll leave behind. They need to be themselves. That’s why I never posted, and I’ll never be posting photos of my daughter online - her online identity must be build by herself and not by her parents.
Final note: Facebook is not the only bad guy here… they’re just one of them. The internet is ruled by GAFAM and they have the power. We gave it to them…
