Saturday, January 16, 2021

Will anyone be on social media by summer?

On January 1, I decided to quit Twitter and cut back my Facebook time to sharing photos of my grandson with close friends and family.  As for Twitter, I found it a waste of time.  

At first, I thought that I was going to lose contact with lots of people.  And then I learned that a bunch of friends had the same idea.

Well, another one of our favorite "apps" is navigating through controversial waters.  This is about WhatsApp:    

A controversial new privacy update has seen WhatsApp users flock to rival messaging apps, in what the founder of Telegram has described as “the largest digital migration in human history”.

In a blog post on Thursday, Telegram founder Pavel Durov revealed that Turkish President Recep Erdogan and Brazil leader Jair Bolsonaro were among those who had joined the platform in recent days.

Earlier this week, Mr Durov said the messaging app had seen a 500 per cent increase in new users amid dissatisfaction with the way WhatsApp handles people’s data.

The Facebook-owned app send a notification to all of its 2 billion users forcing them to accept its privacy policy before 8 February, or else lose access to their account.

I guess that the controversy has to do with "algorithms",  just a fancy word for invading your privacy.    

Looking back, maybe social media was just too easy.  In other words, we access a site for free and meet a bunch of other people.  Of course, it was not free because the site got our information and used it for whatever purpose.

Maybe my 91-year-old mother was right all along.  She never got an email account or fancy phone.  She said I'll call if I need you.   

Maybe that's the future, i.e. phone calls or letters!   At least, you didn't have to worry about ""algorithms" or whatever else happens when you enter one of these sites.

P.S.  You can listen to my show (Canto Talk).

Search This Blog