WhatsApp could disappear from UK over privacy concerns

The Tories want to ban communication systems that use end-to-end encryption. They've announced their decision that "safety", supposedly to be achieved by monitoring everyone's communications, outweighs privacy, so digital systems that maintai8n our privacy against state surveillance will be banned.

Paradoxically, what may defend us is WhatsApp.

The WhatsApp application is nonfree software -- users can't tell what it really does, let alone fix anything malicious or merely broken that may be in it. So many nonfree programs are malware that we shouldn't suppose any of them is honest. The nonfree WhatsApp App could send all the user's private nessages, in plain text form, to whoever Meta/Facebook wishes, whether that be the Chinese government, the UK government, the US government, or Meta itself.

We can't have free software packages that do communication with end-to-end encryption if communication systens with end-to-end encryption are prohibited. Paradoxically, a proporietary app which is not fit to trust may protect our right to have systems which can be worthy of our trust.