I appreciate the sentiment of everybody that basically only sees "uninstall" as the only response, but depending on where you live you might not be able to: I've seen it being used as for example a work tool for teams to stay in touch in place of phone calls for example to coordinate whenever there's no access to "work internet" for example.
The real issue here is how many people have already accepted or will accept because of this kind of huge social pressure to do so: sure nobody is FORCING you to accept Whatsapp or Facebook or Linked in usage, but are you *really* going to miss on positions for jobs or even quit your current job just to prove a point? And are you going to explain this to interviewers "Yeah I quit my last job because they were forcing me to use Whatsapp and they have draconian terms of service I couldn't in good conscience agree to"?
This is how huge companies like Facebook or Apple eventually win: they just become too big to fail, regardless of whatever abusive practices they implement.
Generally speaking, it would require major changes to employee handbooks by HR departments (
especially in jobs with unions involved and/or in the public sector) for an employer to require you to
suddenly have to start using your own personal equipment & services (beyond the obvious "you're working from home, so you have to use your own Internet") to perform your employer-assigned duties, let alone say, "even though we've already invested in company-provided equipment up until now, if you don't start using your own equipment & services we're going to fire you". Not sure about other countries, but even in "right-to-work" states that's a big risk of lawsuits for being unfairly fired that most HR departments aren't going to want to take a chance on. Not to mention the public/social media backlash were that to be made public.
And what many may forget is that most employers do
not want you using your own personal equipment because it opens
them up to lawsuits from 3rd parties & customers should something happen to corporate-collected information that is released because an employee's personal equipment was hacked. Someone hacked your laptop & published a list of customer usernames & passwords? Those customers aren't going to sue
you, they're going to sue the
company because a) it's the
corporation's ultimate responsibility to ensure the information is kept safe, & b) the corporation's pockets are much, much, much deeper than any individual peon's pockets (very important in class action lawsuits).
And I'm sorry to say...but any kind of employer that would resort to that kind of tactic ('you need to provide your own cellphone, email, laptop, etc. if you want to work for us") has probably already shown a history of treating its employees poorly and/or maintaining their compensation at the "less than fully employed" level. And when it comes down to it, with the amount of jobs unfulfilled, you
always have options. Last time I was in between "good" jobs in my field, I worked for $12/hour in a call center on 2nd shift so I could be available for interviews & job hunting, & we pared expenses back as much as we could. Now, if something happened I could simply go down to one of the local Amazon warehouse & start earning at least $18/hour (possibly more, as even though it's been a couple of decades I have worked in a warehouse environment before) -- & yes, that's 100% possible as my niece (graduated high school last year, no college experience whatsoever) was able to get a job there for that pay. Would it pay as much as my current employer? No, of course not. Would I take it if it was the only job I could find? Yes, because a) it would be lazy to sit around collecting unemployment when I can work, & b) even if I did qualify for unemployment, the Amazon job would pay more than standard unemployment benefits.
But...if you
really are convinced that you have no other
