WhatsApp declines with the rise of its rivals Signal and Telegram

Encrypted messaging apps Signal and Telegram are seeing a significant increase in downloads from Apple and Google app stores, while Facebook-owned WhatsApp is suffering from decline in growth after failure that forced the company to clarify the privacy update it recently sent to users.

Mobile app analytics company “Sensor Tower” said Wednesday that Signal witnessed 17.8 million downloads of the app from the Apple and Google platforms during the week of 5 to 5. January 12, an increase of 61 times over the previous week, which recorded 285,000 downloads.

Signal application

Telegram, a popular messaging app around the world, recorded 15.7 million downloads between January 5 and 12, double the 7.6 million downloads from the previous week.

Meanwhile, WhatsApp saw the number of downloads drop to 10.6 million, down from 12.7 million the week before.

Experts believe the change could reflect a rush of conservative social media users looking for alternatives to platforms like Facebook and the now-closed Speak Right.

Telegram application

Experts fear that these movements will lead to new ideological divisions and hide extremism in the dark corners of the internet, making it difficult to follow and fight.

And WhatsApp has sent a notice to its users that they must agree to its new privacy policy by February 8, or they won’t be able to use it after that date.

The notice referred to data that WhatsApp shares with Facebook, the parent company, which shocked some users.

Confusion around the notification, complicated by Facebook’s history of privacy incidents, forced WhatsApp to clarify its update to users this week.

The company said its statement “in no way affects the privacy of your messages with your friends or family,” adding that “WhatsApp, as a member of the Facebook family, receives information from this group of companies and shares information with them. We may use the information we receive from them, and they may use the information we share with them. “

WhatsApp remains the most popular messaging app of the three, and as of yet, there is no evidence of mass displacement. According to estimates by the company “Sensor Tower”, the Signal program has been downloaded about 58.6 million times worldwide since 2014. The Telegram application has registered about 755.2 million downloads and WhatsApp has registered 5.6 billion downloads, nearly eight times the number of downloads. Telegram.