Friday Discussion (18/01/21)
Friday discussions are dialogues that take place weekly. Every week, a topic is chosen, read up upon and then discussed. Saylee ma’am plays moderator and students do the talking. The topic for this Friday’s Discussion was WhatsApp’s new Privacy Policy and whether or not Signal is the better option. The discussion started with the most pressing concern -Facebook now has quick access to the profiles of all the WhatsApp users. While students felt that Signal with its user-friendly interface seems better however founder Brian Acton, also WhatsApp’s co-founder, seems to be taking advantage of the whole situation. Next, they discussed the lack of awareness in Indian users and how they agree to every new policy update in apps without giving much thought or seeking any information. This also raised the question of calling our privacy our own. Students also pitched in about the anti-trust laws of our country having almost no data protection and Apple’s back end security system with Apple ID also providing the option to hide emails. Issues like monopoly of the market by big fishes such as Google and Twitter and the suspension of ex-President Donald Trump’s Twitter account also came to the forefront. There was deliberation on the ‘anti-government’ messages that can’t be forwarded on WhatsApp and how group admins were jailed for the same in many cases. It was carried forward by mentioning that the ‘no fruit of poisonous tree’ doctrine is followed in India but not elsewhere. As a concluding remark, they addressed the bigger picture and not just the WhatsApp issue.