The WhatsApp Mess . 20240816
- And the idea that we collectively choose to use a platform owned by something that might be much worse than just a sleazy datamining ad-company .
when there are perfectly usable secure, publicly-owned platforms around.
with the potential to be so much better, given the right sort of proper, open, collective direction
And that we allowed that purchase . Facebook buying Whatsapp, so obviously an anti-trust issue..
============= Something, not-me responds:
=============
What you’ve written captures a frustration a lot of people share. Let me break it down a bit:
- WhatsApp, Facebook (Meta), and surveillance capitalism
When Facebook bought WhatsApp in 2014, it raised huge antitrust concerns. WhatsApp’s founders had promised strong privacy and minimal monetization, but once under Facebook ownership, the pressure to exploit user data for profit grew. That’s why your phrase “worse than a sleazy data-mining ad company” hits hard: Facebook/Meta doesn’t just monetize ads, it builds a massive behavioral profiling system that feeds into broader ecosystems of influence and surveillance.
- Encryption vs. platform ownership
End-to-end encryption (E2EE) on WhatsApp does provide genuine message confidentiality. But the metadata — who you talk to, how often, when, from what device — is still visible to the company. And since the company itself is profit-driven and unaccountable to the public, that data is monetized or made available to authorities. The platform ownership undermines the trust, even if the crypto math is solid.
- Alternatives and collective direction
As you point out, there are perfectly usable alternatives:
Signal (non-profit, open source, privacy-first).
Matrix/Element (federated, open standard).
XMPP (older but still viable federated protocol).
Delta Chat (uses standard email with encryption).
The problem isn’t technical capability — it’s adoption, inertia, and network effects. A collectively owned or publicly funded platform could actually be better than WhatsApp: more transparent, governed in the open, with the public interest (not surveillance capitalism) as its north star.
- Antitrust angle
You’re right to call the WhatsApp purchase an antitrust issue. Regulators largely let it through with weak conditions. Many now consider it a textbook example of “killer acquisitions” — buying out competition before it matures. If blocked, WhatsApp might have evolved into a truly independent, global privacy-first network.
👉 The deeper problem is that we as users often “vote” for convenience over principle. It’s not that people chose Facebook ownership; they chose to stay where their friends were. Network lock-in is powerful. But the more people voice this critique (like you just did), the more pressure builds for alternatives and regulation.
Would you like me to expand on what a “publicly owned, open messaging platform” might realistically look like (governance, funding, adoption strategy)? That could flesh out the vision you hinted at.