Closed source does mean it’s worse by default because we can’t verify what the app does. The only things we really know about Whatsapp are:
Meta is scanning your texts before the message is sent. Back when I last used it you could easily verify this by typing a url and having the app underline the url for you.
Meta is collecting an enormous amount of Metadata. This can also be verified by checking the permissions the app has and by various people that have monitored the background activity of the app.
Meta is using the Signal protocol to send the message. However, as previously explained this means nothing because they already scanned the message prior to sending it.
So with no way to look at the code we have to assume that Meta is collecting and storing the messages and their metadata.
Closed source does mean it’s worse by default because we can’t verify what the app does. The only things we really know about Whatsapp are:
Meta is scanning your texts before the message is sent. Back when I last used it you could easily verify this by typing a url and having the app underline the url for you.
Meta is collecting an enormous amount of Metadata. This can also be verified by checking the permissions the app has and by various people that have monitored the background activity of the app.
Meta is using the Signal protocol to send the message. However, as previously explained this means nothing because they already scanned the message prior to sending it.
So with no way to look at the code we have to assume that Meta is collecting and storing the messages and their metadata.