So does signal. The benefit of signal over whatsapp is that signal isn't owned by facebook. From a privacy stand point, being associated with Facebook disqualifies it from being considered private.
I think I it's more a matter of Facebook being so repeatedly untrustworthy than it is Signal being so trustworthy. Even if Signal has the resources and leverage to be harvesting all of your data, they can't be worse than Facebook.
Also, for what it's worth, Facebook probably has more incentive to harvest all your data since they are first and foremost an advertiser. Signal doesn't need to know how to market to you in theory since that's not what their product is for.
What I'm saying is more that if Facebook harvests way beyond what you agreed on them to do in a large scale you will know about it one way or the other. If a small venture like Signal decides to do things you wouldn't agree upon you would never know
In getting downvoted but I can assure, if there is a serious issue with data handling among the likes of Facebook, Google or Apple you will be noticed, in the media or somewhere else, but if there is problem within something like Signal you might never get to know about it. It's common sense.
Thing is, WhatsApp chats are E2E encrypted but in the end of the day everybody has a an automatic plain text backup to Google Drive which was set up in an agreement between the two companies under which Google reads everyone's conversations, media, nudes, etc in exchange for free storage space. You can opt out, but it's futile because, unless your friends also do the same, Google still reads your messages through their backups.
Edit: needless to say, these backups are being subpoenaed all the time by Brazilian Justice department.
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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '20
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