Stop using BeReal
Stop using BeReal
BeReal is not good (most appropriate way i could say this). It is a Privacy nightmare. Just think about it, a bunch of random strangers are getting access to every single day what you and your family are doing. I know nobody is concerned about privacy anymore. Seems like we have lost that but still Also BeReal has a bunch of Ads. And since the inclusion of Ads bereal has quickly lost in popularity. If you are searching for a Alternative, you should try out DD-DigitalDiary It doesn't have a lot of the features like social sharing. It is basically a journaling application. But still could be a good alternative. Also there was another app Minutaie which first started this trend so i suggest you should also check it out
When I read "privacy nightmare", I think of a system collecting or revealing information without the user's knowledge. As I understand BeReal, the user understands exactly what information they're sharing, and with whom. That said, I'm puzzled by why anyone would want to participate on either side.
Here are some things I might be doing in any random time window in which such an app might prompt me to share a selfie:
- Eating food, usually not interesting food foodie friends would like to see
- Walking, usually somewhere pretty boring
- Sitting on the toilet
- Writing code at my computer (often code someone is paying me to write and wouldn't like included in a social media post)
- Picking dandelions to feed to the goslings at the park
I don't want to share any of those activities with my friends. If we're catching up on life in person, I'm not going to talk about any of that. If any of my friends do want to see those moments, I'd find it weird and voyeuristic.
The interesting moment I do want to share, and people might actually want to see is the close encounter with the wild gosling taking the dandelion leaf from me.
MC Guzzl in da park, it's about to get dark
My mic's a delicious piece of food
Big up DJ Dan Da Lion, lit and hot like a fire
and Snewp Ducc from my pond in my hood
... and big up Zak for always capturing me in my best moments!
You have your profile set to public? Why not just share with your friends?
Okay, I'll stop (what even is it?)
Edit: if you're at all concerned about privacy, maybe provide something else than Play Store link for alternatives. Google bad.
Its original idea is actually interesting. Influencers always share perfectly composed scenes of their life, so it seems like they are always traveling, always doing something interesting. This app asks you at random times to please share what you are actually doing at that moment, it sends a notification when you should share, it has a window of some minutes to take a photo. You never know when the next bereal notification will show up. You can be sure, if someone always shares something interesting from their life constantly is not just faking it, it's actually real.
I never used it, but some of my friends do, so this is based on their explanations.
You should assume that whatever you upload to the internet without encryption is public. Bereal was always advertised as a tool for sharing your life with others, so this isn't unexpected for me. The only misleading part is that if you share with friends only, it's not just your friends, but also the service provider, so you should assume that it may leak. I never used bereal so I'm not familiar with its features, some of my friends use it and I just heard about it from them. From their description it didn't sound as an app where you should expect privacy.
Is Lemmy a privacy nightmare? No, because you know that everything is public here, admins can even see your DMs.
Do not share private data on the public internet