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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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!
Damn that’s wholesome.
If they are actually totally unwilling to use an other messaging app that has fewer of said negatives, is the partner really interested in that relationship?
I mean, just look at the arguments.
Form OP’s side, it’s privacy, respect of the user by the service, human freedoms basically.
From the partners side, as I understand, it is pure convenience.
Please reread my first paragraph after reading this second one. It will now hopefully make sense, if it didn’t at first.
But to be honest maybe I’m not qualified for this question or something because I have a different attitude to this problem.
To me it’s not my primary purpose to find a partner, and everything else is secondary.
To me, getting to know that someone is neck deep in mass surveillance tech and is so comfortable with it that they are inseparable, instantly turns me off. I don’t want to live with someone who is perfectly fine with the state messaging app constantly scanning my face with an app on my phone, because that means that our values are clearly very different.
If your willing to throw your multi-year relationship away over… software preferences, are you actually interested in the relationship at all?
We’ve only been dating for about 6 months, but I agree with the sentiment of what you’re saying. In any case, we care for each other a lot and want to see the relationship last a long time.
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It’s not at all software preferences. It’s not that I would tell “matrix or I don’t want to see you again”, it’s “switch from that chinese spy tool or we better break up”, as there will be a lot of other things we won’t be able to agree on. Facebook is not even that bad as wechat.
See? It’s not “software preferences”. It’s differences in personal values as big as a chasm. It’s that I value my privacy, and am not willing to give it up, at least absolutely not that much of it. If our values are so very different, that’s a good sign that you shouldn’t ignore.
And then, I’m not sure where you read about a multi-year relationship. I don’t think such a question as OP’s would pop up after multiple years of being used to it.
“Hey babe, you know that app which is your only way of communicating with your family and friends back home? Yeah well I’m breaking up with you if you don’t ditch it.”
Obviously I did not mean to delete the app, but instead to not force you to use it, but I guess it’s just easier to read it in a malicious way.
Relationships (of all kinds) are about compromise. You have to recognize that outside of the echo chambers in communities like this one, literally nobody cares about digital privacy to the extent that us nerds do. So you can choose to be dogmatic in your approach and alienate yourself from the >99% of people in the world who don’t care, or you can recognize that your own desires for digital privacy need to be weighed against your desires to form meaningful connections with other people.
Personally I prefer to be pragmatic in my approach. I do what I can to look after my privacy within the constraints of actually doing what I need to do to connect with other people. That’s why I made this post. My mind is made up that I’m going to at least try to use WeChat, but within that constraint, I want to do everything in my control to limit the app’s visibility into the rest of my system.
Exactly. As I have understood, she is not willing to use an other messaging app. It seems as if only you are ready to have a compromise.
This is not “not caring to that extent”. This is not even just not caring at all. This is straight out ignoring and nullifying any and all concerns of one of the parties over privacy, by the other one.
The only dogmatic thing here would be to say “only matrix”, or “only signal”, or whatever. As I understand you have attempted to offer multiple options.
It’s mostly irrelevant if they care about it. In a healthy relationship no one is The Boss whose decisions must be accepted. Instead if one party does not care about something, but the other very much does, they can accept that and live with it, if that’s not a terrible choice. For example if your wife does not want to eat meat, would you force them to do so, because you don’t want to deal with making meatless meals? I often eat meat, but I would be ready to give it up regularly doing so if need be. Or if they don’t want to deal with the selfhosted media store, ok, fine, let her keep her Netflix subscription. This however, is not about pleasures, but about giving up or not human rights important to me.
In this situation however, it sounds like as if your girlfriend with be “The Boss”
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I did not say neither mean that.