While WhatsApp has clarified doubts regarding its new privacy policy, are people ready to trust the platform again or are they still looking to migrate to other apps? Youngsters share their thoughts with NT KURIOCITY
RAMANDEEP KAUR | NT KURIOCITY
No one likes any interference with their privacy. And thus when one of the most popular messaging apps, WhatsApp, asked users to agree to its new privacy rules or else lose access to the app, people began to do a rethink about continuing using the platform.
“In simple terms, WhatsApp said that they’ll share data with their parent company Facebook. Here’s where the problem rises. We all know how Facebook works; basically by showing advertisements on our feeds and by sharing our data with other companies (data mining). So whatever you discuss on WhatsApp, there’s a possibility that they might have access to it if they want. Hence it created a panic among people around the world,” says Sagar Patel, a student.
Although WhatsApp has since cleared privacy doubts that people had, Patel states that trust is a thin thread, once broken it’s broken and even if you tie it up there’ll always be a knot as a reminder. He thus recommends that we stop relying too much on any one app and suggests Signal or Telegram as alternatives. “However, certainly the sudden migration is difficult,” he says.
Another student, Lisa Mendonça has in fact already downloaded and started using the Signal app. “When the update was made known to us, a friend of mine recommended the Signal app to me for being more secure. I’ve installed it and honestly it’s very easy to use and understand as it doesn’t share your data with a third person. But although I prefer the privacy policies of the Signal app, I know that many of my friends wouldn’t like to make a change,” she says.
Blogger Melissa Pacheco has also shifted to Signal and Telegram after she began to worry about being spied on. But, not a lot of her contacts are on it yet. “Family and friends and I as well are already used to WhatsApp and it feels comfortable,” she says. Other apps, she adds, feel different and since not many are on it yet she still uses WhatsApp although she plans on gradually making the complete shift by uninstalling WhatsApp.
Media professional, Alisha Fernandes too is skeptical about trusting WhatsApp again. “When the news broke, I immediately shifted to Telegram and Signal. I use these two apps now especially for sharing photos and videos,” she says. But as a lot of people are still on WhatsApp, she still uses it just to chat but avoids sharing personal photos and videos.
Indeed, the controversial WhatsApp update made Bryce D’Souza, a student, aware about the type of data that WhatsApp could collect such as the location where the account was created, the groups, contact lists, the type of phone used, as well as the OS of the phone. “I got to know about all of this when I thought about downloading my data from WhatsApp and it was indeed really shocking,” he says. “However WhatsApp has got that network effect, so taking that into consideration I don’t feel I will stop using WhatsApp unless my friends start abandoning it.”
Rhea Naik, a student, also does not have qualms about continuing using the app. “When they clarified the facts I decided there was no need to shift. I am still using WhatsApp and have no intentions of switching to another app. I don’t think that they are going to get access to our data in any way,” she says.
A cath lab technologist in Goa Medical College, Hari Bodke is okay with using WhatsApp. “You need to be on this platform because so many groups and things are shared here. And since I am a part of an organisation where we have groups specifically made for our work data I cannot completely abandon it yet,” he says, adding that he has been an old user of Telegram but does not use it
very often.
Bodke further says that these platforms were made so that one can have a peaceful conversation with others. And privacy he says is not guaranteed even with your closest people so what can one expect from apps made by people. “So if you’re on digital platforms there’s more than one way to violate your privacy, be it any platform,” he shrugs.
Aryavrat Malhotra, a student, also never really got overhyped about the issue. He already uses a bunch of apps but still stick to WhatsApp mainly. He says: “In this day and age, where our data is already being shared and used by companies, I knew that this whole issue would cause outrage for some time and then everyone would
forget about it.”
