Thread by @amitangshu

I have never used #WhatsApp, ever. I always saw it to be an invasive & privacy violating tool. In #India, that translated into being called "Luddite" & an anti-social. I watched it being made mandatory for office groups, housing societies, public services & vendors. 1/1

My resident housing society secretary recently shouted at me for not being on #WhatsApp. I didn't realise it was mandatory, I told him. "If everyone is on it then what's your problem?" He hollered 2/2

But that's what everyone did. Joined a platform unthinkingly, because it was "convenient" and those who were trying to think things through were made an object of frustration and ridicule. 3/3

I watched how WhatsApp allowed bosses to push workload onto their office colleagues after office hours, bypassing official email. People had to be always reachable. Switching it off was not an option.That choice of was an illusion when you are scared to miss a msg from office 4/4

So switch to #Signal or whatever but if you end up replicating the same exploitative system of corporate office culture, then you are not solving a problem, you are shifting it. So those people who are now on exodus mode, please re-think your engagement with IM's 5/5

Advocate that IM's cannot be used for official communication, it has to be on official email, & you cannot be reached on IM for official work. Ask RWA's to return to email groups so that only important & critical messages can be circulated not silly good morning messages. 6/6

It is not about Zuckerberg being after your private data, but how we are using these tools to violate each other's privacy. Also, being constantly reachable is an extension of capitalist exploitation of labour. Don't be a part of it. 7/7

Finally, wear "Luddite" as a badge of honour. Luddites were not against technology, they were against how it was being used to displace labour for accumulation of profit.

End.