New EU rules mean WhatsApp and Messenger must be interoperable with other chat apps. Here’s how that will work.

WhatsApp will soon make it possible to chat with people who use other messaging apps. It’s revealed some more details on how that will work.

— Apps will need to sign an agreement with Meta, then connect to its servers.

— Meta wants people to use the Signal Protocol, but also says other encryption protocols can be used if they can meet WhatsApp’s standards

— WhatsApp has been testing with Matrix in recent months, although nothing is agreed yet. Swiss app Threema says it won’t become interoperable

  • Mechanize@feddit.itEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    “One of the core requirements here, and this is really important, is for users for this to be opt-in,” says Brouwer. “I can choose whether or not I want to participate in being open to exchanging messages with third parties. This is important, because it could be a big source of spam and scams.”

    Let me translate this for you: "We will make users hop on the most cumbersome, frustrating and inefficient way we can think of to enable interoperability. And making it defaulted to off will mean people using other apps will need to find other channels to ask for it to be enabled on our users’ end, making it worthless.

    And don’t forget: we will put a bunch of scary warnings, and only allow to go all in, with no middle ground or granularity!"

    Great stuff, thank you. I can’t wait.

    “We don’t believe interop chats and WhatsApp chats can evolve at the same pace,” he says, claiming it is “harder to evolve an open network” compared to a closed one.

    Ah, so they are going for the Apple’s approach with iMessage and Android sms. Cool, cool.

    I hope my corporate-to-common translator is broken, because this does just sound bad.

    • MudMan@kbin.social
      1·
      2 years ago

      Yeah, but you do realize all that you’re describing is still more open than “this is a closed app that interops with nobody and also is permanently tied to your phone number”, right?

      I mean, I don’t like the guys and I avoid their services whenever possible, but… man, as an unwilling Whatsapp user the ability to migrate without having to convince all my social circles to do anything but check a checkbox sounds like a huge step forward. I literally surfaced the idea of migrating to the WhatsApp group I thought would be most willing today and got nothing but crickets.