Four Years of #DeleteWhatsApp

01.02.2025

Exactly 4 years ago, I deleted WhatsApp from my phone and it will definitely stay that way. Since WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook back in 2014, there have been repeated discussions about user data being shared between these platforms. Although the sharing within the EU was probably not quite as extensive as in the rest of the world, it still existed. I had already deleted my Facebook account in 2017 (when Facebook was still popular) and so I didn't want to allow a new connection here if possible. At the beginning of 2021, a change to the WhatsApp terms of use was announced, which once again led to a lot of media attention. Anyone who did not agree to their data being passed on to Facebook would no longer have access to WhatsApp.

In January 2021, WhatsApp announced a controversial new Privacy Policy allowing WhatsApp to share data with its parent company, Facebook; users who did not accept by February 8, 2021, would lose access to the app.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WhatsApp#Since_2020

I had thought about deleting it before, but at that point my motivation was high enough. My last messages on WhatsApp were the information that I would soon no longer be there. I finally deleted WhatsApp from my phone. Would I now miss out on all the important updates, especially from the many group chats?

When asked what my motives were for taking this insane step, comparing the data protection information in the AppStore was always a good argument. It still is today!

Apple AppStore, 01.02.2025

WhatsApp Privacy

Screenshot of the WhatsApp privacy practices on the AppStore showing all the data which may be collected and linked to the user.

Signal Privacy

Screenshot of the Signal privacy practices on the AppStore showing only a single data which may be collected but is not linked to the user.

Who's in?

My family and (almost all) important contacts from my circle of friends were quite quickly willing to use Signal as well as WhatsApp. A few of them, like me, had already been doing so for a while. But even today, there are still some people who “don't want another app” on their phone. I would be interested to know whether they actually pay that much attention to the number of apps installed ... not really an argument for me.

What did change?

In the beginning, there were no status updates on Signal to let other people know what you were doing without having to write a direct message to everyone. As a result, you naturally missed out on a lot of information from your contacts. However, from that day on, I spent much less time on my phone because these status updates were always numerous and took up a significant amount of my time. This feature is now also available on Signal, but it is used by far fewer people and is no longer very important to me. Definitely a win!

Probably the biggest change was the group chats. Signal offered this feature long before I switched, but most people still use WhatsApp as their primary messenger. Fortunately, I was part of only a few groups when I was on WhatsApp, but I miss most of them until now. At school, the question of whether we could also use Signal as a communication channel at least came up this year. In the end, it didn't catch on, but at least it was discussed once. After all.

All alone?

Last year there was an information event at my children's school on the subject of media consumption and children's phone use. To get an impression of the audience (parents), the speaker started by asking a few questions on this topic. One of them was: “How many of you don't use WhatsApp?” Of the 250-300 parents present, I was the only one who raised my hand.

I just realized that #GlobalSwitchDay was proclaimed today. What a coincidence. There are many open source alternatives for the most popular commercial platforms. Well worth a look.

I would like to encourage you to take the step and delete WhatsApp from your phone. And if you manage to gradually convince others of the alternatives, then perhaps it will soon be completely normal in your environment.

Support OpenSource

Signal Messenger is backed by a foundation set up by WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton. The App is open source and available for free. It is financed by donations. If you don't want to pay with your data like on other platforms, you should perhaps consider to donate a few bucks every now and then.

Signal DeleteWhatsApp OpenSource Privacy GlobalSwitchDay

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