I am trying to convince my group to switch from WhatsApp to Signal and we plan to vote on it soon. So, I plan to use the replies in this thread to compile a list of reasons to use as talking points. Preferably, I need something that can be understood on a personal level as some of my friends are deeply cynical and have no concern about escaping techno-feudalism and surveillance.
Same thing that made me choose WhatsApp, people are there. We need to force companies to allow for open messenger standards now
Zucc at the time. That they’re American at all now.
All the reasons the good folks have set out here are great.
I tell my employee: if you don’t have a secure line of communication already installed when you need it, it’s too late. Ask me how I know…
…how do you know?
Fuck the zuck
Shitbook knowingly contributed to the genocide against the Rohingas in Myanmar. I want nothing to do with a company that is this evil.
What’s app is Facebook, what other argument do you need? Unless this you retirement home group chat how the fuck is anyone under 50 still using Facebook.
Meta. But perhaps an additional and entirely petty reason: It’s a terrible pun.
I never processed that it was a pun. Goddamn it’s terrible
It’s a…? Oh. Ew.
Meta
This is the correct answer.
I just wish I could have expressed my complex opinions more eloquently.
To add to that, this is what you are to him.
It’s simply trust in the organization that maintains the app.
Unless you’re coordination/organizing about legal grey or red areas then it’s not much danger. Meta says it’s E2E but do they really not have access to your data? I don’t believe them. Any data they have would be happily handed over to the authorities just like your protonmail.
Signal just straight up doesn’t have access since it’s all stored at the endpoint and they provide no remote backup.
One is owned by a US tech corp whose primary income stream is building advertising profiles on users and selling advertising space to businesses while handing data off to authoritarian governments without warrants.
The other is a US non profit where the FBI admitted the only data they can get from them is when the user registered and when they were last online.
and recently they figured out how to use the OS’s notification database to collect some cache and read the notifications Signal sends
fortunately, most OSs now offer granular enough notification controls so they can be set to just notify users when messages are received and nothing more.
On one OS. You can tune Signal not to display the notification contents. Moreover, if you’re on iOS and actually expect privacy, you should probably reflect on your choices a little more.
Realistically iOS is more private than base android at this point
But not Graphene. I’ve yet to hear about this exploit on Android. Curious if it holds true.
They pulled the Signal messages from an iPhone… https://www.forbes.com/sites/larsdaniel/2026/04/10/fbi-pulled-deleted-signal-messages-from-an-iphone-without-breaking-encryption/
… Because the person had message previews in notifs turned on
Definitely
Matrix remains my favorite. Warts and all.
Delta chat for me
I am unconvinced that Zuckerberg isn’t personally searching Meta messages to select future Epstein Island 2.0 victims.
I’ve had friends who had close calls with what seemed to them to be a kidnapping attempt by a paid organized group of people.
I dismissed their experience.
Then the Epstein files released.
Tinfoil hat incoming:
Zuckerberg’s whole organization makes a hell of a lot more sense if their real product is profiles allowing billionaires to select their next rape victims.
Everything by meta is spyware.
