Facebook rebrands WhatsApp and Instagram to include "from Facebook"

[AlTech]

Hi guys, this is my first one of these in a very long time and I don't know how much more of these I will continue to do so for now it's a one off.

 

Story at hand:

Facebook is now rebranding their apps to all include "from Facebook" in the name which they say is

Quote

to be clearer about the products and services that are part of Facebook

.

 

WhatsApp will now be called WhatsApp from Facebook and Instagram is getting the same treatment with it now being called Instagram by Facebook.

 

TheVerge, the source used for this, indicates that they think it can only harm Facebook's reputation further among consumers and frankly I don't disagree. I think this will be a turn-off for a decent amount of people who may have not been aware of the associations and business relationships (aka Facebook owning them).

 

Quote

Just how uncool can Facebook make Instagram and WhatsApp? If exerting more influence over the direction of both apps by installing Facebook executives wasn’t enough, now the social network giant is going to add “Facebook” to their names. Instagram will soon become “Instagram from Facebook” and WhatsApp will turn into “WhatsApp from Facebook.” The company already follows this approach with its Workplace app. The Information first reported the planned changes, which Facebook confirmed directly.

 

The new titles will appear in the title for both apps in Apple’s App Store and Google Play. On your device’s home screen, the name for each will mercifully remain the same (for now). But it’s also very likely that you’ll see “from Facebook” on the splash screen for both apps. Facebook already made this exact change with Oculus.

 

I'm not terribly sure why Facebook would want to do something like this but TheVerge seems to provide a possible explanation for it:

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The Wall Street Journal yesterday reported that the FTC is examining whether Facebook’s many acquisitions were made with the goal of squashing competition. Now, two of the company’s most significant purchases will have Facebook stamped right onto their names.

 

I do hope more people move away from Facebook because of their awful privacy practices and their past issues but I doubt the majority of people on WhatsApp or Instagram will leave overnight because of something like this.

 

Anyhow, that was it for my first tech news post in a long time. No idea if I'll make more or not. Hope you guys enjoyed it.

 

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/2/20752324/instagram-whatsapp-renamed-adding-facebook-branding

Edited August 3, 2019 by AluminiumTech
Fixed a typo

[Arika]

nice, now it's easier to see what apps to avoid

[AlTech]

2 minutes ago, Arika S said:

nice, now it's easier to see what apps to avoid

if I could both "like" this reponse and "agree" with reactions then I would.

 

100% agree and I hope some non-techies see it that way too.

 

+1

[Metallus97]

Well guess there will be even more peeps leaving WhatsApp. so Manny dont know its owned by FB. Okkk I have stoped using it since FB bought it 

[LukeSavenije]

[Guest]

o0o you're back.

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

Could be worse, they could have named it "Facebook Talk" and "Facebook Photos".

[jiyeon]

3 minutes ago, Captain Chaos said:

Could be worse, they could have named it "Facebook Talk" and "Facebook Photos".

Don't give them ideas... If I see Facebook Talk and Facebook Photos in the future, I'm blaming you.

[Guest]

22 minutes ago, seoz said:

Don't give them ideas... If I see Facebook Talk and Facebook Photos in the future, I'm blaming you.

They might just name it FaceApp...

Oh wait....

[TetraSky]

Cue mass exodus..... of nobody, because it's not like people using those apps didn't know they were owned by facebook.

 

Honestly, it's a ridiculous move and serve no purpose other than pushing the facebook brand down everyone's throat.

[IAmAndre]

It is a ridiculous move but I really don't think that the people who didn't know that these apps were owned by Facebook (i.e mostly non-techies) will even consider ditching these apps just because of this. Actually it seems like many people "left" Facebook for Instagram because of pics, influencers and all that stuff and that won't stop. You also share less personal information on those platforms than you do on Facebook and WhatsApp's big selling point is their end to end encryption.

[RejZoR]

They needed YEARS to declare Onavo is also part of Facebook. And they wouldn't do this if people weren't outraged when Facebook was shilling Onavo VPN as "privacy tool" without disclosing Onavo is actually owned by Facebook. And has been for years before this fiasco happened. And there is bunch of other companies and services owned by big tech corporations and no one disclaims that openly. Navigation software Waze for example. Owned by Google and not mentioned anywhere. Or Twitch.tv by Amazon. Again, not a single word about it anywhere. If things are relatively unrelated no one cares in general for other products, but when it's about data hoarding from users, it sure as hell matters.

[Guest]

I don't use any of the 3, so I'm safe however you'll look at it

 

[Andreas Lilja]

Cue the MiIlennial / Z exodus from Instagram, because it isn't Facebook.

[PatXioPC]

On 8/3/2019 at 5:47 AM, Den-Fi said:

o0o

[TacoSenpai]

On 8/3/2019 at 12:35 AM, huilun02 said:

Whatsapp is a big one. A shitload of people in Asia use it. Knowing that its owned and run by Facebook will spur greater investigation and controls by regulators because there are legitimate national security concerns.

That's somewhat surprising as I thought LINE and WeChat were the big ones there and Kakao. 

On 8/3/2019 at 8:22 PM, Andreas Lilja said:

Cue the MiIlennial / Z exodus from Instagram, because it isn't Facebook.

We'll see.  As much as I would like to see that happen people tend to choose convenience over privacy theres definitely some good alternatives out there like Signal, LINE, and GroupMe but its a matter of switching over.

[TacoSenpai]

4 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

Asia is a lot more than just Japan, China and Korea...

 

In my Country (Singapore) everyone and their dog uses Whatsapp. The people here are quite well-off and our culture greatly favors socializing. So much so that social platforms are deemed too important and people barely care about privacy and technical knowledge. We just throw lots of money at technical issues and put blind faith in whatever solution comes forth. People buy flagship phones every year just to use social media. My people do not realize how vulnerable they are. Its fucking sad man...

I realize that. I just know of those being the big ones and people using one of those regardless of where they are in Asia.  But I suppose just from mass I shouldn't be too surprised about whatsapp's use there.  I do know in places in Europe that WhatsApp is installed by default on alot of Androids sold there or so I'm told...

 

Thats why I do have some cynicism with whole privacy vs convenience argument with social media and applications.  I want alternatives to succeed and they have definitely gotten better much better actually but they still are playing catch up.

[Anomnomnomaly]

On 8/3/2019 at 1:07 AM, AluminiumTech said:

I do hope more people move away from Facebook because of their awful privacy practices and their past issues but I doubt the majority of people on WhatsApp or Instagram will leave overnight because of something like this.

 

Anyhow, that was it for my first tech news post in a long time. No idea if I'll make more or not. Hope you guys enjoyed it.

 

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/2/20752324/instagram-whatsapp-renamed-adding-facebook-branding

 

I have been trying to convince people for years to abandon facebook/whatsapp/instagram and so forth... but the vast majority of people are lazy and incapable of functioning without them these days. I've given up trying to explain exactly what is going on with them and how they are attacking your very way of life.

 

I deleted my facebook acc some 7-8yrs ago... I deleted whatsapp the day after it was announced that facebook bought them. I've never been on IG... I was however on google+ when it was good (2011-2014) and had more than 5000 followers in spite of actively trying to discourage people from following me. But google killed it through a series of bad management that drove people away after Vic Gundotra left (one of my followers) and they finally killed it off earlier this year.

 

So I've been trying to get people to switch to telegram... and failing... all I get is peoiple whining that 'you're not on facebook/messenger' and so forth... and expecting me to do what's convenient for them... whilst being completely unwilling to do ANYTHING' to ensure they can stay in touch with me.

 

People in the tech industry... shun facebook and take steps to minimse any data they can collect.  personally I use firefox with the following plugins. ublock origin, noscript, privacy badger, ghostery, disconnect and the built in firefox containers. I also use a VPN. Certain sites are also blocked in my hosts file and/or at a router level.

 

I may not be able to stop everything sites try to collect, but I do everything I can to fudge the data they can scrape.

 

All I tell people these days is this 'If you understood just what they are doing, and the danger that poses to you, your identity and the safety of your children.'.. you'd never ever visit their sites ever again.

 

But still they do... and still they whine that they can't keep in touch because 'I'm not on there'

[vanished]

On 8/2/2019 at 6:09 PM, Arika S said:

nice, now it's easier to see what apps to avoid

Honestly, yes.  I quite like this change, I think people should know what comes from where and this can only help that.  I would hope that most people already know who owns these apps but I have no illusions about it and very much suspect that there's a great number who do not.

 

On 8/2/2019 at 6:59 PM, TetraSky said:

Cue mass exodus..... of nobody, because it's not like people using those apps didn't know they were owned by facebook.

 

Honestly, it's a ridiculous move and serve no purpose other than pushing the facebook brand down everyone's throat.

Realistically I definitely see this side of it though.  The people who want to avoid facebook already know these apps are connected and anyone who doesn't know they're connected likely doesn't care (but who knows maybe there are some).

I don't think it's at all crazy to imagine facebook thinking that these other apps have a better reputation and that people may be unaware of the connection, and hoping to harvest some of that good will back toward the mothership.  I tend to think that it will go the other way, but who knows.

[IhazHedont]

Personally, I've never wanted to use one of these, but all my friends and family are using them.

 

If  anyone knows a replacement without loosing all your contacts, I'm all ears.