The rise of Mastodon has made me so much more aware of government services requiring us to use private companies’ systems to communicate with them and access services.
Sitting on a Dutch train just now I was shown on a screen “feeling unsafe in the train? Contact us via WhatsApp”.
What if I don’t use WhatsApp? (I do, but I wish I didn’t have to) I’m forced to share my data with Meta to use it.
Public systems should not require use of private services.
@Brendanjones apart from the fact it's clearly insane for the government to use a (foreign!) for-profit service to facilitate communications for them... I always think to myself "what if I ran a WhatsApp alternative?". Like literally, what if I was the CEO of a competitor? I'd be so furious my rival was somehow getting this preferential treatment. It's so obviously wrong.
@Tijn @Brendanjones just start a competitor ad network, insist the govt use that, when they do not sue for discrimination.
@Tijn @Brendanjones Now I'm wondering if this is stuff that should get put out to tender.