People still treat texting like it’s whispering secrets into a vault. They fire off confessions, gripes, flirtations, and rants through platforms owned by trillion-dollar surveillance operations and somehow think the data disappears into some benevolent digital black hole. In truth, those messages are sitting in servers run by corporations whose business model is built on knowing more about you than your own family.
The illusion of privacy is propped up by branding. All those glowing icons, lock emojis, and soothing copy about “security” and “protection” are marketing tools, not actual safeguards. Unless a service uses end-to-end encryption, your conversations are readable by the company, its employees, and anyone else with the right credentials or subpoenas.
