From a support article by WhatsApp, one of the – if not the – most popular messaging app in the world:
If you received an in-app message stating your account is “Temporarily banned” this means that you’re likely using an unsupported version of WhatsApp instead of the official WhatsApp app. If this is the case, you must download the official app to continue using WhatsApp.
Unsupported apps, such as WhatsApp Plus and GB WhatsApp, are altered versions of WhatsApp. These unofficial apps are developed by third parties and violate our Terms of Service. WhatsApp doesn’t support these third-party apps because we can’t validate their security practices.
With how important messaging platforms like WhatsApp are in many countries – including my own – they’ve basically become an intrinsic part of the fabric of society, and as such, I really feel like we need to do something about the kind of behaviour as highlighted in this support article. Do we really want to leave a core aspect of our communications up to Facebook, of all companies?
I’m not sure what we can do about this, exactly. Suggesting alternatives like Signal is pointless, since that’s like suggesting all your friends and family learn a specific language just to communicate with you. Government intervention should definitely be an option, but I have no idea in what shape or form. Whatever happens, though, I see little difference between concerns about Huawei’s networking equipment and Facebook’s WhatsApp.
If you’re concerned about one, you should be just as concerned about the other.
This is kind of our fault
We let companies merge the protocol and the client
We let things like XMPP and IRC and even OpenDocument fail, and are letting things like SMTP and even HTTP die.
We’re the ones who use this stuff, who promote this stuff…
The1stImmortal,
The general public is oblivious to the merits of underlying standards. While many of us in tech are knowledgeable and some of us deploy federated protocols whenever we can, we are insignificant next to the masses of users who only have a vague idea about the importance of privacy and security but no clue as to how to accomplish it in practice. If only they understood more about the technology and how to get away from the massive corporate data silos accumulating data for billions of users, then they might make better choices. But as it stands, everything is a black box to them and they have no way of knowing how/why one service better aligns with their interests than any other – all of the major corporations have a financial incentive to turn our data into advertising dollars and most have taken advantage of their user’s collective ignorance to do just that.
I think the corporate data silos have won and are here to stay. Those of us who protest the corporate data silos largely do so in vain because more secure networks don’t have the users needed to make them useful.
Truth. I used to tell all my friends to install Signal but trying to convince someone it is different than the texting app that comes with their phone has become too tiresome.
Lately I find myself thinking about the book Snow Crash. It seems like we’re on the path to corporate statehood, where every place we inhabit will be for the profit of one company or another.
By “We” I meant both just the people who use computers generally, and the ones who manage computers, who write apps, who evangelize to others.
Other people can be convinced that the silos are bad for them. Its hard work, but can be done.
Giving up however, accepting that the proprietary model has “won” is the best way to ensure that it has.
The1stImmortal,
I do appreciate what you’re saying, but it’s hard to plot a path forward that escapes it. This is in part because of the user expectation that everything has to be free, which more or less ropes in the advertisers that created our current mess.
Peer to peer technology had a ton of potential by distributing the resources of maintaining the network to the edges. I think P2P can largely help offset the costs of network building while keeping it mostly free, but today’s mobile devices are poorly suited for P2P (limited storage, battery life, bandwidth costs, unreliable background execution, etc). The networks themselves are more likely to interfere with P2P connectivity than in the past. Techniques like ICE that make P2P more reliable in fragile networks are less efficient and require more dedicated servers that cost money.
The social network effects are a bit of a catch 22. Even assuming the technology was here today and worked well, what would we do to actually get people to use it over the popular networks? How can we break into a highly consolidated market and beat the incumbents?
“Suggesting alternatives like Signal is pointless, since that’s like suggesting all your friends and family learn a specific language just to communicate with you. ”
Bushwah. It’s just asking them to install a new application on their phone, no different than what they had to do back when they were using SMS and got asked to install whatsapp. These messaging applications are so similar in usage that zero learning is required.
Is not about simple usage, those apps are aggressive: they try to take over SMS, install icons cluttering the main display of your phone, bother you with notifications and update requests. And is not just about “friends and family”, here are a few scenarios: you meet your cousin, you never seen in the last 5 years and talk for a bit “I’ll send you that picture on Whatsapp”, “sorry, I don’t use it, can you install Signal instead?” or you talk with a business partner “I’ll scan the docs and send them via Whatsapp”, “sorry, I don’t use it, can you install Signal instead?” or the first meet with the other parents at your daughter school “let’s make a Whatsapp group to communicate”, “sorry, I don’t use it, can everybody install Signal instead?” Those are all real-life.
Exactly. People think it’s easy to just get all your friends and everyone else you may need to interact with on a different chap application, but that’s just wholly impractical. I think my language analogy is quite apt – it’s really like asking all those people to learn a special language *just for you*. It’s an entirely unreasonable request to make and will quickly makr you lose out on work, new friendships, acquitances, and so on.
Maybe I’m old, but people managed just fine when they migrated from compuserver to america online to DSL to Cable Internet.
Or from AOL browser to internet explorer to firefox to chrome.
Or from AOL to Myspace to Facebook
Or from AOL chat, to MSN, to Yahoo, to sms, to whatsapp.
People are capable of changing apps. I’m not sure how to drive mass migrations ( if i did I’d be one of those multi billionaires) , but I’ve seen it happen. Its possible. Anyone know how to do it here? Open to suggestions.
Your language analogy made sense for a few seconds, but immediately breaks down when we consider the past. As many other people point out, we used to use SMS/Email, then AIM/MSN/Skype, then FaceBook/Twitter, then WhatsApp/Messenger/Instagram and I probably forgot quite a few*. We are not talking about learning a 2nd language, we are talking about learning a 10th, with a total learning curve and cost of about 15 minutes and 0 dollar/euro
However, none of this will happen because at the moment people (the masses) are happy with their communication tools. The moment they are unhappy they have shown to be able to switch incredibly quick. The network effect is only strong when people are happy with the network
*Ignoring WeChat (China) and Line (Japan) for example
For all their efforts, these corporations still can’t get out from the open standards (and often de-facto standards) behind email. An email like open standard is the way to go. XMPP, or whatever else. We just need some useful clients built on these, and some kind of company with a funding structure which can support the effort. A company like that in order to succeed, would almost certainly not be a pump and dump wall street product (corporation).
It was like that when everybody embraced XMPP (Google Talk, Facebook Messenger) and then they diverged into proprietary solutions. There is no sign of them ever going back.
THat happened because they recognized that their business interests did not align with an interoperability standard. Having a monopoly on the platform is in their business interest. That’s why I say we need a different kind of organization, with a different set of concerns than just stuffing money in their pockets.
I was happy that all my friends were on XMPP when we were on GTalk …we still use it, but it’s not the same since it isn’t federated. 🙁 (and IIRC FB Messenger newer was?) A shame, really – especially since it has small usage share anyway, and being federated probably didn’t hurt it.
Anyways, as for the news…
Wait, don’t they simply violate, like, copyrights? And trademarks… (how are those allowed in Play Store?)
Regulation should require two things:
1. document the protocol
2. publish a set of rules for the 3-rd party clients that want to connect to your network
Now probably those aren’t to be imposed to every chat app, not to an app used internally by a company, it would need a threshold: maybe a certain market share, maybe usage in public administration, something like that.
PS: I don’t care in the slightest about Huawei’s networking equipment but I do remember the times when I had Pidgin taking care of all my IM needs, in 4 networks simultaneously.