Norway has succeeded in getting the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) to make permanent and extend across Europe its ban on Meta (Facebook’s parent company) harvesting user data for targeted ads on Facebook and Instagram.
I wish they would pull out. It’s fucking ridiculous that so much of Europe is apparently just ok with using a Meta product for the defacto texting platform (WhatsApp).
Better than the US, at least in Europe you are not forced to buy a specific device just to be able to communicate.
Who knows, if Facebook gets severely limited by these laws, maybe we’ll all switch to Signal or something.
You’re not forced to buy a specific device there. They all text each other fine. You just don’t get fancy iMessage features if you’re on Android.
“Fancy” features like group chats, or sending pictures that don’t look like ass?
When every single alternative (other than RCS, ironically enough) just plain works. People just text, send each other pictures, participate in group chats, and it all just works, no matter the phone, computer, whatever, there are even just plain websites for many services.
Eh, it’s not like we started using it because it was Meta’s. They bought it when it was already popular, and switching everyone to something else is difficult.
Yeah, WhatsApp was ported to basically every single platform that was relevant in 2009-2010 when it launched: iOS, Android, Blackberry, Symbian, Series 40 and Windows Phone. Supporting Blackberry and Nokia mobile OS which were huge at the time as well as the new smartphone OS’s was genius.
I mean that’s basically the same difference. It’s owned by the same company.
But Messenger has always been Facebook, so those users “chose” a Facebook product. WhatsApp users mostly signed up before Facebook bought them (getting those users is why Facebook bought WhatsApp).
The choice to use a Facebook product was made for existing WhatsApp users by the sale. You can personally choose a different service, but then you also have to get all your contacts to make the same choice.
