• According to Whittaker, the bill requires the encrypted messaging app Signal to install so-called backdoors in the software.
  • varyingExpertise@feddit.org
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    23 hours ago

    There are a few people in my social bubble that are not technical at all, but heard a few bad things about WhatsApp and that’s why they are using Signal. Nothing more, they do not know how it works, they do not know who provides it.

    • x00z@lemmy.world
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      22 hours ago

      And now they’ll hear something bad about Signal and move on as they did with WhatsApp, as per your example.

    • kbal@fedia.io
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      23 hours ago

      Seems to me one of the main things that got people to move away from Whatsapp en masse a few years ago was a rumour that they’d added a backdoor to it similar to the one Sweden is thinking of demanding. If an unfounded rumour did that much, the real thing might do substantial damage to Whatsapp as well if they were to go along with it. It probably wouldn’t completely demolish it, as it would for Signal — or at least its demise might take longer.

      • groet@feddit.org
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        23 hours ago

        The target audience is everybody with a Smartphone.

        The majority of people in my signal contacts are there because someone (sometimes me) pushed them to use it instead of WhatsApp.