SUMMARY

  • The EU has identified WhatsApp as a gatekeeper in the messaging industry and has given it a few months to enable interoperability with other apps.
  • The EU’s Digital Markets Act aims to promote fair competition and give consumers more options for alternative services.
  • WhatsApp has already begun working on interoperability with other apps, potentially allowing smaller players like Signal to compete more fairly.
  • tiredofsametab
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    610 months ago

    I have a whatsapp because my dad wanted to be able to call me without international long distance fees. He’s called once and I get endless amounts of spam. I’ll be seeing him in a couple of weeks, and I can hopefully switch him to LINE (what everyone uses here) and get rid of this app for all and get the last cancer of Meta out of my personal life.

    • @unix_joe
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      410 months ago

      deleted by creator

      • tiredofsametab
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        110 months ago

        Really? I’ve gotten almost no spam in the last decade or so I’ve been using it. The one time I did, I think the account had been hacked.

        • Fushuan [he/him]
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          210 months ago

          Back at you with whatsapp too. I still dislike it but not because it generates spam, at all. Do you mean that you get messaged by spammers though whatsapp? I only use it to chat with family memebers and I have no issues with notifications or anything. Maybe I have blocked some notifications but you can do it too.

          • tiredofsametab
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            110 months ago

            Yeah, I get tons of random messages from people I don’t know. A couple are recruiters who are finding my number on my CV, but most are just “hi sweety, do you have time to talk?” from random numbers all over the world.

            • Fushuan [he/him]
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              110 months ago

              Huh, that means that your phone number was sold to call centers. There’s a thing called the robison list in europe, idk if it works worldwide, where if you put your phone number in that list call centers can’t legally call you. I’ve recieved zero spam since I put my number in that list, but it seems surprising that recruiters are contacting you through Whatsapp instead of calling you, emailing you or just sending you a message through LinkedIn, that’s seems excessively aggressive.

              Damn, I don’t really have a solution besides marking them all as spam, but new numbers will keep coming so idk if there is a good solution, sadly. Just a note though, if you are receiving that much spam through whatsapp is noe because it’s whatsapp specifically, it’s because it’s the most used app in europe and spammers try to contact numbers from their list though the common apps by default.

    • @jack@monero.town
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      310 months ago

      WhatsApp is fundamentally bad and anti-consumer because it is proprietary. When people are not allowed to understand, change and redistribute the source code, the people will ALWAYS be milked and abused in some way. Trust me. LINE is also closed source and unfree, so it would only be a matter of time until that company fucks you up and you want to switch to another messenger. The most popular open source/ free messenger would be Signal. Conceptually the most promising one in my opinion is SimpleX Chat, if you want to be a bit more adventurous

      • tiredofsametab
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        110 months ago

        No one I know is going to change to those. LINE also has other business stuff built in for interacting with companies (customer service for my massage place, my dentist, etc.) In an ideal world, sure, but it isn’t going to happen.

        • Gamey
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          110 months ago

          I have a similar issue but I am able to use SMS for those few people, most of them are relatively easy to convince of Singla in my experience, it’s as easy as it gets, basically whatsapp in secure!