Comment by photonthug
2 years ago
After I realized this happened to me, I uninstalled signal. But because of the way signal jumps in and replaces normal sms, I found out later that signal users were no longer sending/receiving plain text messages to/from me properly. I forget the details but it was really frustrating.. first it ate my contact list and contacted them, then after I uninstalled it held those contacts hostage, breaking comms with them because those users didn’t know they were still signaling me, not using a normal text message. I text, they reply with signal, I can’t ask them to uninstall their app, so now if I don’t reinstall the app myself or borrow a friends phone to try and reconfigure it then I guess we’re now out of touch forever? It’s not privacy-friendly to replace or hide built in functionality, it’s just an attempt to coerce people and to bolster your user numbers.
>now if I don’t reinstall the app myself or borrow a friends phone to try and reconfigure it then I guess we’re now out of touch forever? It’s not privacy-friendly to replace or hide built in functionality, it’s just an attempt to coerce people and to bolster your user numbers.
yeah, you need to authenticate to delete the account (aka deregister). How else would they verify that you are the owner of the account you want to delete?
So because they elected to blur the line between their own opt in service and a built in service, I have to jump through extra hoops to properly opt out and get my comms back up? That’s if you even realize any of this is happening. Whether it’s down to design or to negligence, that’s a pretty hostile user experience and it feels deliberate, especially since they pawed through my Contacts to “help” me into this position. I felt disrespected and no longer very confident in their stated values/mission. Hard to use or recommend after something like that
Signal has not supported SMS for quite a while now.
It would be interesting to know whether signal decided to fix the awful UX I’m describing or if the android/iOS app stores noticed the abuse and disallowed it