You can refuse to provide official ID or biometric data for social media accounts requiring age verification.
Actually, I bet if everyone did refuse, and let their account dormant for a couple of weeks, you would suddenly see American Big Tech transforming into the fiercest defender of your privacy rights, using their powerful network of lobbyists to fight these invasive government regulations.
They need you more than you need them.
Force them to work for your rights.
Do not comply.
I left FB 15yrs ago. Never regretted it. I don't use LinkedIn or Insta or TikTok.
95% of my friends message through Signal rather than Meta ie Messenger (FB) or WApp
One of my dearest friends refuses to get a Signal account and leave Meta/WApp bc she says "it's another app to download and they're all the same". Im in Aus. She's in UK. I don't want to lose touch but I want to close WApp.
Give me sthg WATERTIGHT to convince her Meta/WApp is fucked.
@Godfrey642 @yuhasz01 @Em0nM4stodon
Dan Goodin at Ars Technica last September:
"Baig also allegedly notified superiors that data scraping on the platform was a problem because WhatsApp failed to implement protections that are standard on other messaging platforms, such as Signal and Apple Messages. As a result, the former WhatsApp head estimated that pictures and names of some 400 million user profiles were improperly copied every day, often for use in account impersonation scams. "
@Godfrey642 @yuhasz01 @Em0nM4stodon
Techradar, May 2024:
"WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption to protect your communications. It does so by scrambling the data into an unreadable form so that no one outside the sender and receiver can access it, not even Meta itself. At the same time, though, it regularly collects some seemingly less important details attached to your messaging activities—metadata."
"This information includes IP addresses, phone numbers, who you have spoken with, and when, among others. It may not look so important, but even such small digital traces can act as identifiers."
https://www.techradar.com/computing/cyber-security/whatsapp-encryption-isnt-the-problem-metadata-is
@Godfrey642 @yuhasz01 @Em0nM4stodon
Cybernews, Feb 2025:
"Metadata might sound harmless, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. According to [Signal CEO Meredith] Whittaker, metadata is deadly."
"… 'It tells you exactly who you’re communicating with, at what time, how often, and where you are. You can derive so much from that. WhatsApp can link that information to Facebook, to Instagram and to payment data that they could buy into. Signal simply doesn’t have all that data,' she said."
https://cybernews.com/privacy/signal-ceo-criticizes-whatsapp/
@Godfrey642 @yuhasz01 @Em0nM4stodon
"We kill people based on metadata"
— General Michael Hayden. Former NSA and CIA Director. Debate with David Cole. Johns Hopkins Foreign Affairs Symposium Presents: The Price of Privacy: Re-Evaluating the NSA. at John Hopkins University, 7 April 2014.
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