Seriously... If I had a dollar for every post I've seen bashing Facebook Messenger, or for every post telling people "I won't be able to check my messages because of FBM's policies, I have deleted it" and the supposed FBI/NSA/CIA/BLT involvement (which minus a BLT, I'm sure that they'd have other ways of accessing your information and already doing so... But that's another story), I wouldn't need any other source of income.
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| Facebook and Facebook Messenger Permissions side-by-side |
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| Comparison of FB, FBM, Hangouts, BBM and WeChat |
First, Facebook's official app needs even more permissions, but I don't see anyone complaining about that. Other popular messengers including BBM, WeChat and Google Hangouts need about the same amount of permissions, and I don't see anybody complaining about that. I haven't included other major messengers/social networking services (e.g. Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, LINE, etc.), but I'm sure it needs about the same amount of permissions.
Facebook has also been advertising Facebook Messenger for a long time to have enhanced features that supersedes just having the app alone, but only recently made it mandatory... Not to mention lots of other services have made their apps and messengers separate, like, China's Tencent has Qzone, similar to Facebook, QQ -AND- WeChat, BOTH messengers made by the same company... Doesn't make a lick of sense to me, but is anyone complaining en masse to Tencent or catching flights to China to protest this matter? Foursquare just spun off Swarm, but I don't see anybody making conspiracy theories, Google+ and Hangouts are separate (although let's face it, the user base isn't the same).
So folks, please put away the tinfoil hats. What if it was your own sibling/child/SO/BFF stuck somewhere with no cell service and only Wi-Fi, or your ghetto friend who doesn't believe in paying for cell service and your paranoia is so deeply encompassing that you don't get an important message until you turn your computer on (which for me is every 2 days)? What if that same message was his/her last words and your arrogance let him/her die in vain? Now THAT is the right kind of paranoia instead of worrying about something that FB has been doing and using all along!
Keep in mind a few things:
1. I am not playing devil's advocate; this is a neutral standpoint. I am writing this on my own observations and free will, not paid, endorsed or coerced by any company to do so.
2. The screenshots are UNMODIFIED from my own phone (Motorola XT926, 4.4.2, unrooted/unmodified OS. The ONLY PSing I did was stitch the screenshots together, change the contrast since there was a gradient effect and erased useless data such as total space occupied, clear cache button, etc.), using latest versions of each app available at time of writing (Aug 31, 2014 7:25 PDT). NO permissions have been added or removed.
3. All trademarks, logos and copyrights mentioned and implied are copyrights of their respective holders, and used for educational purposes. All rights reserved. Please don't sue me.
Please pass the word along if you're so inclined.
