Comment Re:"secure platform" (Score 1) 25
Haven't there already been instances where Meta gave up info from "secure" WhatsApp chats to legal/govt requests?
Meta can give up the metadata (pun intended) of who you're speaking with, which is often enough for legal/govt purposes, but they cannot give up the content of the messages.
The biggest problem with WhatsApp -- if you aren't a tinfoil hat wearing paranoid -- isn't Big Brother. It's Big Data. WhatsApp will happily ingest your contact list, photos, location, and all manner of other sensitive information, after which Meta will happily use said data to sell you ads. Nothing stops Signal from doing the same, or Apple for that matter with iMessage, but neither of those two outfits are ADVERTISING companies. Meta absolutely is and its CEO is on record laughing at you for giving him all of your information.
Regarding Big Brother, end to end encryption is a false sense of security if you're worried about him. Go read the 1/6 indictments and court transcripts and see how many allegedly secure Signal chats got entered into evidence. If you're using an E2EE platform to plan a criminal conspiracy, I hope you realize it's only as secure as the weakest person in the group, the one who will happily rat out the rest of you in hopes of a better deal. If you're using it for something more mundane, like cheating on your spouse, well, the civil system has a much lower standard of evidence than the criminal and it's going to reflect really badly on you if you don't surrender the messages during discovery.