If public opinion and attitudes about privacy and security have really evolved significantly since Mark Zuckerberg launched the Ivy League-only TheFacebook.com, they would be moving to Signal in droves. They aren't. Most people don't care.
I convince friends occasionally but the privacy argument does next to nothing. The gif search, reactions, and MMS handling are all better selling points.
They care, just not enough to uproot their lives and drop their communication with other people on the platform. That's where Apple and governments come in and simply make tracking unviable.
We shouldn't be looking to Apple as our biased replacement for a government; they also, for example, pull apps that poke at how iPhones are made in sweatshops... that they occasionally move to do something someone finds valuable doesn't exonerate them or forgive how much power they have accumulated.
> We shouldn't be looking to Apple as our biased replacement for a government;
Who is doing that?
Governments have so far completely failed to manage intrusive tracking.
Apple isn’t acting like a government. They are simply recognizing that this is an attractive service and providing it.
> they also, for example, pull apps that poke at how iPhones are made in sweatshops... that they occasionally move to do something someone finds valuable doesn't exonerate them or forgive how much power they have accumulated.
This is just generic Apple hate and not relevant to the thread.
> or provide any way for users to exercise their data protection rights
the privacy policy, in fact, does. Per it's update date of 5 April -- before the publication of this article on 28 April -- the privacy policy says
> Please log in to your account or contact us (at support@alphaexplorationco.com) if you need to change or correct your Personal Data, or if you wish to delete your account.
Not to mention the persistent use of single companies and their actions used to malign every startup. See, eg, the article about clearview. (If the author weren't lazy, they probably would have realized clearview is not actually a silicon valley company: it's in ny, and the primary investors are Kirenaga partners, an east coast vc firm. So really only tenuous connections to sillicon valley)
I convince friends occasionally but the privacy argument does next to nothing. The gif search, reactions, and MMS handling are all better selling points.