* Except SMS

@TheMadnessKing @floppy in Europe for most people iMessage is just the SMS app. Even though it pisses me off that Apple got away with it, having WhatsApp to comply with this is just huge. Everyone here uses WhatsApp, and now I won't be forced to leave Signal anymore.

iMessage is not considered a gatekeeper in Europe because pretty much nobody uses it. That's why it's extempted.

Apple just claimed an exception. It's still up to the EU to determine whether it is actually exempt or not.

Nobody here uses it though

It's because there's not enough people in the EU actually using it.

It's really on American regulators to hold American companies accountable if they abuse their dominant position in the American market to the detriment of American consumers.

They got a exception because npbody uses that insecure garbage here, everyone uses Whatsapp tho so this makes a lot of sense!

I’m there with you on the ideals, after all here I am on Lemmy (and mastodon fwiw) with Reddit and TwitterX deleted.

But, everybody I am close to in everyday life is a normie for lack of a better term. I don’t have to use Facebook regularly, for example, but there is a practical value to just having it available and checking notifications from time to time.

Kind of like how I’m looking through some code in Linux at work today, but it’s running in a VM on my Microsoft/O365 equipped PC. Much like with Facebook, factors outside my control necessitate using it, so I accept it without stressing myself.

I’m not trying to argue or convince you to change your ways though! FLOSS and privacy need awareness and advocacy, and therefore need strong outspoken supporters!

only people that care for me are using that because I asked them to.

That logic works both ways. You don't care about them enough to use WhatsApp/Facebook it seems to me.

WhatsApp can eat a crap

I won't use it either

Not to burst your bubble but SMS is even less secure than WhatsApp. In fact, SMS is among the least secure communication avenues on a phone, since your telecommunications provider has the ability to keep logs of what you send, when you send it and to whom you send it to.

Not to mention how insecure 4G is and how easy it is to intercept other people's messages

No, it's still E2EE. Meta can't read it as far as anyone knows. Meta will know that the other person has you in their contacts (they already know this) and that they are messaging you, that's it.

I fear that Signal won't implement cross compatibility for WhatsApp since they already said that they are not a fan of potentially giving up E2EE to get it to work. And I can understand that but I still really would like to have the cross compatibility.

Signal and also lots of other privacy focused messenger-services (threema e.g.) already said the will not implement this forced interoperability since it will lower their already high standards regarding their users privacy. Sad but i guess it makes sense :(

When every single person you know uses Whatsapp, you have to use it too. That's what this law is about. So you can use other apps even if everyone else uses whatsapp

Whatsapp worked on iPhone, Android, Blackberry and even some old ass java phones

They dominated the market in most countries or were close second to Messenger.

Now they keep growing and it doesn't give any chance to smaller better apps, this law makes it possible for you to use only signal but also chat to people that only use Whatsapp

Probably won't. WhatsApp is already huge. Threads was a new platform with artificially inflated user numbers.