Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

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Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

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Safest way of using WeChat on Android? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

61 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I live in Canada. My girlfriend is Chinese (also living in Canada), and while we are able to communicate via SMS, her mobile carrier isn't the best, and so there have often been issues for us with regular texting. She expressed a strong preference to use WeChat, at least as a backup option for when texting fails us. While I have some pretty significant reservations, it's not the hill I want to die on. So my question is: what can be done to use WeChat without compromising my whole phone? I'm okay with it if our conversations aren't private, but I'd like to know that I'm not giving unfettered access to all of my phone's systems and data to the CCP. What can be done to limit the reach of this ubiquitous app on my device?

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Ignore the dumbass "why dOn'T yOu jUsT uSe sOmEtHinG bEtTeR" replies. Anyone who has a partner knows that the onus is generally on the privacy-conscious one in the relationship to make these types of concessions, since the other person is usually incapable/unwilling to use something better.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago (1 children)

And, let's be fair, for most people the real loss from this level of compromised privacy/security is far less than the real gain from helping your relationship.

Sometimes I look at products I use from dubious companies, take a step back, and think, this company is actually a blessing in my life even if there is a smaller curse attached. That said, I'm grateful for all the tremendous effort put in by many people to make the digital (and rest of) world a safer, more private, fairer and more honest place. And I try to do at least a little of my share!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

Damn that's wholesome.