There’s nothing to stop anyone sending you a message on WhatsApp if they have your number, be they an individual or a company.
But it IS absolutely infuriating - not because it’s an advert, but because I don’t want any aspect of my communication with companies to take place on third-party proprietary closed platforms of which that company has no ownership or data control and which would require me to have an account with said platform.
I’m sure many people love being able to contact customer support by shooting them a DM on Instagram, but to me that’s wholly unacceptable.
If companies want to talk to me it should be through email or SMS only - because those are the only methods which are provider-agnostic.
Email and SMS are like the original federated systems. (And the postal service is, too!)
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They can’t send messages out of the blue, you have to contact the company via whatsapp first, after which they have a 24 hour window to reply. Marketing messages are opt in.
I guess that’s part of WhatsApp’s terms of service. Good to know, thanks.
Either way, my dislike for corporations using closed platforms still stands. I really wish we had some modern, secure and featureful version of SMS - a federated direct messaging system that everyone was on, and yet nobody owned.
I had one of these marketing messages from Amazon this morning. I’ve never contacted them through WhatsApp, and as far as I can remember, have never contacted them outside of their apps. I definitely haven’t contacted them with my phone number.
They have my phone number, but it’s supposed to be for delivery issues, and I’ve withdrawn all advertising and marketing consent.
EDIT: I just checked, and I was automatically opted in to WhatsApp marketing, despite having turned off all other marketing 😤
Maybe thats a law where you live but ive definitely been contacted by a bunch of companies through wpp without having contacted them first.
Syncthing fork!
As for whatsapp, well it is not ads per se FROM whatsapp but rather them now sending these VIA whatsapp instead of mail or SMS.
Yes, but I didn’t sign up to receive ads in WhatsApp, nor did I agree when creating either account.
I see. So all the spam you receive in your email and sms is because you signed up and agreed to receive it?
Bold of you to assume I get spam in my emails or SMS
Signal is way better and I wish it was more common for people to use.
I only have it because the neighborhood group chat uses it. I can’t convince hundreds of people of all ages and backgrounds to switch to Signal unfortunately. Some of them barely know how to use a smartphone.
We used to say the same thing about Messenger.
Try and give them a hand with it. The app has a very low cognitive load and a very simplified UI. Once you set it, its easy to forget its any different. I reminded the older folks in my circle that they could look at it as a guaranteed way to speak to family, and regular texts are more of the spam that come through
All you really need is to get a few people on board
You could use Beeper to connect to Whatsapp messages (messaging only, no calls).
I refuse to put the Discord app on my phone and use Beeper for it instead.
Thanks for the recommendation. Is Beeper trustworthy on the privacy front?
Beeper is a matrix bridge packaged for user-friendliness. It also includes SMS/RCS, which is handled natively and does not use bridging.
For how I use it, it isn’t much of a concern. I use mine for SMS/RCS, Discord, and native Matrix. Discord is already poor on the privacy front, and I trust the Beeper app more than the actual Discord app.
Matrix bridging does add a step to comms (going between the Matrix network and whatever other network) that some have expressed concern over. From my own research, and the general consensus over on the numerous Reddit posts, while it is true that it adds a step to the process this doesn’t involve any unusual vulnerabilities. The app itself seems secure and does not display old/previous messages on unauthenticated logins. I.e. you have to log in and then verify the session either by linking to another verified session or using a recovery key.
If you have a messaging platform that you have selected specifically because of its superior privacy features, this is one of those “do your own research” moments. You may wish to stick to the native app rather than running it through Beeper. Alternately, you can self-host the Beeper bridging, though that is a little beyond my skill level and wouldn’t benefit me.
Thanks for the info. Whatsapp is a pretty low bar so anything else would be better at this point lol. Given I only use it for one specific purpose (neighborhood group chat), I’m inclined to try Beeper out.
My family moved as soon as I asked last year; but my old friend group is rather stubborn.
I blocked Whatsapp in Whatsapp and so far I got no new messages from them.
Same
It’s really just ads by said company, not whatsapp. But whatsapp is partially blamed because they have system to do this, and since some service that you subbed require your phone number, they simply used the data they collected to send you ads via whatsapp. It’s like spam mail from service you give your email to.
Syncthing enjoyer
Time to teach your friends and family that if they’re going to keep playing on the corporate intranet then they need to migrate from time to time to stay ahead of the tide of enshitification.
Or they could join the free internet that is actually by and for people, but far be it from me…
My family already moved to Signal about a year ago, and I have an online friend who I talk to over Tox; but my friends from high school pretty much only use WhatsApp, Instagram, ans TikTok, and they have never been open to my suggestions of switching to Signal and the Fediverse.
i tried to convince my family and friends to use signal, only my parents wanted to, so still a win :3
Mompop always come thoo don’t they ❤️
Upvote for Levellers and Syncthing 👍
I didn’t notice. I don’t use a messenger app. I only use the fucking SMS text like back in 2004.
We need a open standard to replace SMS. They should’ve added a new mandated standard along with 5G.
Ok boomer
whatsapp is now really useless
There were talks on making people opt out automatically if they don’t give consent for continuing the messages.
In that case it’s not WhatsApp itself, it’s a business using your phone number to message you.
If you open the chat and click the name on top, there should be a toggle to turn off “Offers and announcements” for that account.
If not (or you don’t wanna receive any messages from the sender at all), just block them and make sure to check the “Didn’t sign up” box.
What app?
Good song
