Big news for messaging: WhatsApp is rolling out support for interoperability, enabling third-party chats across Europe. BirdyChat and Haiket are already supported with WhatsApp. Here's why it matters 🔐
Meta built this under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), maintaining end-to-end encryption (E2EE) and some basic privacy guarantees. As a whole: you can talk across platforms without sacrificing security. (or WhatsApp's definition of it)
Why this matters: The DMA aims to curb big tech dominance by promoting interoperability. No more being locked into one app ecosystem. Theoretically more messengers will also work with this.
While this doesn't resolve WhatsApp's privacy concerns, it does help bridge the gap between WhatsApp users and those who opt to use Signal. Potentially someday, you can message WhatsApp contacts from Signal without ever needing to set up a WhatsApp account.
What messaging app would YOU want to see become interoperable with WhatsApp? Signal? Telegram? Matrix? Something else entirely?
Chat with the community about it:
https://discuss.techlore.tech/t/meta-messaging-interoperability-whatsapp-enables-third-party-chats-for-users-in-europe/15949
@mpanhans @techlore @xmpp well, the Problem with their "solution" is: everything still remains in the WhatsApp silo.
True interoperability would split the userbase onto different servers/providers and the huge pile of data WhatsApp is sitting on and their market power would shrink.
Of course the don't want that even if it would be good for society as a whole.
@mpanhans @techlore @xmpp more details: they reached out in February 2024. I deliberately misunderstood them, pointed them to the XMPP RFCs and told them I'm really exited that they finally want to implement true interoperability.
I even told them that the community would be happy to help sorting out the protocol differences and would even accept new XEPs closing gaps between the two systems.
I never heard back from them 😂
@mpanhans @techlore @xmpp the proof that WhatsApp is based on Xmpp and using ejabberd can be found here by the way: https://web.archive.org/web/20230316112202/http://lists.jabber.ru/pipermail/ejabberd/2009-June/005027.html
@mpanhans @techlore @xmpp A few years ago whatsapp asked me, if I wanted to be one of the early adopters of the new interoperability and add it to Monal, the iOS/macOS #xmpp client I maintain.
But here is the culprit: its not interoperability on the protocol or server level. WhatsApp only provides an http api endpoint you can use to send messages into the WhatsApp "network".
Essentially this allows to write new WhatsApp front ends/3rd party apps. That's not what I'd call " interoperability ".