Article by Rabbi Mordechai Lightstone: Recent developments with social media and messaging have caused a great deal of confusion. After consulting professionals, here are some points that can help clarify things.
By Rabbi Mordegai Lightstone – Director of Tech Tribe
With the recent developments on social media and messaging apps – especially Whatsapp with the change in terms of service – a number of people have helped me explain what exactly is going on.
And there’s a TON of confusion out there. So I took a moment to check with professionals and security staff in the Tech Tribe community about the best practices with WhatsApp. Finally, based on my personal reading on things, the following is an outline of striking points:
Updating WhatsApp’s rules is not related to current political debates.
There is now a lot of discussion about recent political developments and how it intersects with social media. These issues can be very important. But they are not related to WhatsApp’s update.
This is not new – WhatsApp has been connected to Facebook since 2016.
Two years after buying WhatsApp, Facebook began integrating the app into their ecosystem – sharing metadata and other details like those with other apps. Facebook is not free, it earns money by selling ads to you, and it sells your ads based on the abundant amount of information you share with it. (That’s why you get birthright ads)
In fact, every tech company today works that way. Since 2016, WhatsApp has had this integration. The one-time sign-out feature has ended with this new update. Some changes to the privacy policy also apply to people working with WhatsApp on Facebook. Family and group chats remain unchanged.
Facebook does not read your messages.
Whatsapp still uses end-to-end encryption. (It uses the coding system of Signal). Mark Zuckerberg can not see your messages. It can be seen by someone looking over your shoulder.
If you really do not want to share information with Facebook, WhatsApp is not enough!
Since all these apps mountains collect background information about us – to delete WhatsApp without using Instagram, Facebook, Messenger, etc. Removing it will not have the desired effect of preventing Facebook from collecting all the juicy data you give them and sending messages in the apps. is not end-to-end encrypted.
Speaking of which, there are many other security features:
Google, Amazon, Apple, the credit card you have to maximize your points. . . they all collect TONS of information about you. Did you know that Google can create a map for you based on your phone usage? Target was able to find out that a girl was pregnant before she told her family. Do you use two-factor authentication and strong passwords? (ideally something unique to each site – or with a service like Lastpass). There are many that are worth knowing that are directly relevant to your safety online. A lot of it is in my opinion much more important than giving data to Facebook.
There are definitely stronger options out there:
Signal is strongly recommended by the experts. This is always important for different app options. If your internet privacy is your new thing, there are exciting options to explore. Telegram does not use your information to sell your ads, but is considered less secure than Signal and WhatsApp.
But for your messaging needs, WhatsApp is really good for most people:
Really, WhatsApp works well for almost every form of communication you carry about it. It has end-to-end encryption and is consistent with the data sharing that every service we use takes from us. There were no new developments in this regard, there were new reasons to eliminate it.