In January, WhatsApp sparked a huge backlash after announcing it would force its users to agree to new terms and conditions for its privacy policy. The updated wording made it look like Facebook would get the content of their chats, or something like that – which is funny because while it’s not true for WhatsApp, it’s for Facebook Messenger, and it doesn’t. There’s never been a negative reaction to this service, has there been?
Anyway, after the internet exploded and people started switching to services like Telegram, which are actually less secure than WhatsApp (if we’re talking about accessing the content of your messages), the Facebook-owned company postponed the changes to May 15. The new policy was originally scheduled to go into effect on February 8.
You might be wondering what happens if in May you don’t agree to the new terms and conditions. Today, the company explained just that. If you opt out of the new terms after May 15, you will still be able to receive calls and notifications for a few weeks, but you will not be able to read or send messages from the app.
It’s unclear what happens after this, but WhatsApp has a new policy of deleting accounts that have been inactive for 120 days, and you can be counted as such if you opt out of the new terms. Contrary to popular belief, WhatsApp has been sharing metadata with Facebook for years, the only new things it would send back to the mothership after this update is payment and transaction data, in order to help Facebook better target users. advertisements through its various services. Paying and transacting through WhatsApp isn’t even a thing in most places, so maybe take a breath before you go crazy again, the internet. Or if you hate Facebook so much, maybe stop using Messenger first – this one doesn’t have end-to-end encrypted chats by default anyway.
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