8/23/2023 0 Comments Whatsapp news alert may 2017My grandfather, the traditional head of the household, had seemed invincible. Western medicine seemed as if it had failed them. The virus was mysterious, and my family looked to WhatsApp for comfort. The writer’s uncle in Brunei forwarded a message that said an Indian student had purportedly found a remedy to Covid-19. WhatsApp tagged it as a viral message that had been “forwarded many times.” My uncle received many emojis of brown clapping hands in return. “PLEASE CIRCULATE,” the message demanded. If ingested for five days straight, the tonic would rid any person of the virus. An Indian student had purportedly found a remedy to Covid-19 by mixing black pepper powder, honey, and ginger juice. My uncle, who works as a dentist in Brunei, proposed a solution on the family chat. These were all sad stories, but they were many degrees away. In the summer of 2020, most members lived in countries where Covid-19 was still something that happened to other people: migrant laborers, health professionals, and domestic workers who couldn’t afford to take time off. Yes, it was Covid-19, but we were lucky that he had none of the other symptoms. When the results came out positive, the doctors concluded that my grandfather was suffering from an extreme version of “brain fog.” My uncle shared the news with my mother, who called me. It was as if a thief had robbed him of his memory and left without a trace.Įventually, a doctor suggested a Covid-19 test. Finally, on his sixth day in a stupor, my aunt decided to drive him to the hospital. My grandfather still had no recollection of who he was surrounded by, where he was, or why he was there. most of whom I have only met once or twice as a child.Įach night, we would go to bed hopeful, but in the morning, the news would be the same. For solace, we turned to our family WhatsApp group, a jumble of aunts, uncles, and cousins spread across India, the Middle East, and the U.S. Covid-19 cases were on their first ascent in India we couldn’t risk traveling from New York to be by his side. Facebook said the ban was “based on a fundamental misunderstanding” of the update.Last July, my 80-year-old grandfather woke up in the middle of the night, unable to recognize any of the people in his small apartment in central Bengaluru - not my aunt, not my uncle, not even my grandmother, his wife of sixty years. In Germany, Hamburg’s privacy authority has issued a three-month emergency ban on the new terms coming into effect, arguing that they are opaque, inconsistent and overly broad. “There are no changes to our data sharing with Facebook anywhere in the world,” Niamh Sweeney, WhatsApp’s director of public policy for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, told the home affairs committee earlier this year. WhatsApp was forced to delay the update, and roll out a publicity campaign explaining that the new agreement was simply focused on a new set of features letting users message businesses on the app. Viral messages spread on the chat app itself, with some wrongly claiming that the new agreement would give WhatsApp the right to read users’ messages and hand the information over to Facebook. Millions of users downloaded alternative apps such as Signal and Telegram after WhatsApp announced that the new terms would come into effect on 8 February. It comes after a backlash from WhatsApp users in January, when the company first tried to update its terms of service. That softer approach is unusual for Facebook, which historically has enforced new terms of service by putting an unskippable consent screen up on day one. At that point, users will have to choose: either they accept the new terms, or they are in effect prevented from using WhatsApp at all. “After a few weeks of limited functionality, you won’t be able to receive incoming calls or notifications and WhatsApp will stop sending messages and calls to your phone,” the company said.
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