On January 7, Whatsapp announced its privacy policy update that compulsorily shares its data with Facebook in a bid to help operate, provide, improve, understand, customize, support, and market their services and their offerings. This puts over 2 billion users outside the UK and Europe at risk of losing their accounts if they do not accept its Terms of Service and updated privacy policy by February 8.
In October 2020, Mark Zuckerberg spoke about the company working towards making Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp function as a single-cell body and this new privacy policy move is an expression of that.
Since its announcement, It’s users have chosen to opt-out by deleting the app and switching to other messenger apps like Telegram and Signal which were previously overlooked due to WhatsApp’s dominance. Data from Sensor Tower shows an increase of 1.7 million downloads on Telegram while Signal garnered 1.3 downloads since the announcement. A 13 per cent drop in the 10.3 million WhatsApp’s downloads was noted after the new privacy policy was announced.
Its users first caught wind of this privacy policy update in a notification from WhatsApp sometime last week. It explains as follows:
‘As part of the Facebook Companies, WhatsApp receives information from and shares information with, the other Facebook Companies.
‘We may use the information we receive from them, and they may use the information we share with them, to help operate, provide, improve, understand, customize, support, and market our Services and their offerings, including the Facebook Company Products.’
This means Facebook will have account details, the duration you spend on the app, your conversations, IP address and browser information. Additional data collected could be language and time-zone of the user.
So many users in the UK and across Europe have already uninstalled the app despite not being affected. A spokesperson for WhatsApp confirms that the UK and Europe will not have their data monitored and this privacy policy will only influence how businesses interact with customers on WhatsApp. It does not affect how people communicate privately with their family and friends and that information. With WhatsApp using end-to-end encryption contents of messages will not be seen by Facebook but the how frequently will be.
Elon Musk/ GETTY IMAGES
Moreover, despite this explanation, users are not comfortable with the idea of data sharing with Facebook and this has to lead them in the search for alternatives. The likes of Edward Snowden and Elon Musk are known users of the Signal app. The SpaceX CEO donated to the development of the app last year and when suggested by a follower of his as an investment opportunity he said he’ll donate more
He also had this to about say about Signal:
It’s not news that the Tesla CEO has always criticized Facebook. Him suggesting to his large followers all 41.5million of them to be exact to use Signal right after WhatsApp announced its new privacy policy could not be a coincidence. However, he did not call any company by name, so his reason for the tweet is best known to him.
Since this tweet, Signal says it has seen an increased amount of new users than normal which resulted in delayed number verification code of new users. The Signal App has also risen on the Goggle most downloaded apps ranked at number 10 in the UK and the US respectively while WhatsApp has fallen to 38 in the US as recorded by App Annie.
They also took to Twitter to express their thanks to countries like India, Germany and France just to mention a few, on being the number 1 ranking app on the Apple store raising above WhatsApp in second.
Somewhere else Telegram also experienced a surge in new users. Only recently did they announce 25 million new users in 72 hours via their official Twitter account. What best to commemorate the news of WhatsApp’s new privacy policy while assuring privacy to those on the fence? If you guessed troll WhatsApp then you are absolutely spot on and spoiler alert it features your favourite Ghanaian pallbearers
Responding to an SOS call
Meanwhile, the Twitter community has responded to this new update policy with a little humour. Here are some of our favourite picks
Other WhatsApp Alternatives.
- Telegram: With over 500 million users worldwide, it takes the number one spot on this list. With a similar user interface to WhatsApp, this app will have you feeling nostalgic. It is very secure and safe. It also has a self-destruct feature that wipes your messages with no trace. Pretty sure that’s not what 007 fans expected.
- Signal: The safest option for sending messages across to friends and family because of its open-source code which allows its users to see the written code. No wonder Edward Snowden uses it.
- iMessage: Well, Its just back to default settings for iPhone users. Boasting of features like texting, sending pictures, videos to playing iMessage games with friends. You can also create Animated emoji’s and use them across a wide variety of apps.