The MOST EVIL facebook requires you to give permission in order to message people. But there is a NICE workaround: https://newchat-ga.pages.dev/ If you are worried about them collecting data, just host it yourself! Once you have a single contact, simple put the phone # of the person you want to add in your whats app contact you just added, and then click on it and it will add it to the list of active chats. I REALLY DESPISE whats app but so many people use it. IF you are REALLY paranoid, just get a 'burner' phone # say when you are on vacation in another country, and use that #. They only verify the phone # once. I LOVE that I can minimize my data I send to FUCKERBERG and his EVIL CO empire!
