cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/5331985

President Maduro of Venezuela denounces

WhatsApp as a spying system

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has accused

WhatsApp of operating as a spying tool and urged citizens to switch to alternative messaging apps such as Telegram and WeChat.

Speaking at a meeting in Miraflores Presidential Palace in Caracas, the president asserted, “WhatsApp provided its list of Venezuelan users to Colombian drug traffickers, who then conducted months of espionage.”

  • umbrella@lemmy.mlEnglish
    15·
    4 months ago

    yup. i don’t quite get why leftists don’t care about privacy, when we are and will be the ones being targeted.

    • DyskolosEnglish
      1·
      4 months ago

      “poor defaults” = comfort for the everyday jane and joe. Noone concerned about privacy would not check setting first and adapt them. Encryption isn’t cool to regular folks. They don’t care. And it kills comfort and would drive them away.

      Also nobody forces you to use the cryptos. It’s a cool innovative use of the even more cool mini-app-system. Use or don’t. I personally love the tgram-api and use it extensively.

    • Redcuban1959 [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
      4·
      4 months ago

      Most Colombian cartels are allied with far-right paramilitary and politician groups. I think Alvaro Urribe is currently going to jail because of his links with such groups.

  • kim (she/her)@lemmy.mlEnglish
    5·
    4 months ago

    i can understand being dubious of WhatsApp given it’s closed source and owned by Facebook. but Telegram and WeChat? Both closed source and with very questionable encryption? Signal is the only clear answer.

    also side-note, WhatsApp audits and analyses have all come back confirming it’s at least deploying the same end-to-end encryption as Signal, though stores a bit more metadata. so Facebook knows when / who you’re messaging. Telegram / WeChat are much worse in this regard. as an anti western imperialist i’d still choose WhatsApp over Telegram / WeChat for comms. though ideally none of the above for anything important

    • DyskolosEnglish
      1·
      4 months ago

      Why the heck would you prefer WA over telegram? There’s a good reason many bad people and groups use it. Wouldn’t touch wa or wc with a 10m-pole but telegram, yeah sure.