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The encrypted messaging app Signal says it is seeing a surge of new users signing up to the platform, so much so that the company is seeing delays in verifying the phone numbers of new accounts at several providers. mobile telephony.
As to what or who is responsible for so many new users interested in trying the platform, which is managed by the Signal Foundation, there are two likely culprits: Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Signal competitor. WhatsApp.
Verification codes are currently being delayed at several vendors as so many new people are trying to join Signal right now (we can barely register our enthusiasm). We are working with carriers to resolve this issue as quickly as possible. Hang on.
– Signal (@signalapp) January 7, 2021
Musk, who is now the richest person in the world after surpassing Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in net worth, tweeted a meme last night criticizing Facebook for his role in helping members of the mob that took assault the US Capitol Wednesday to organize online. The tweet, an image of a series of ever-larger dominoes, juxtaposed Facebook’s start as a website for evaluating women on the Harvard University campus to a platform that, from one way or another, helped facilitate the attack on Congress on Wednesday as he tried to certify Joe Biden as president-elect.
Musk, who has criticized Facebook more in recent years, followed the meme with a suggestion to his 41.5 million subscribers: download Signal, probably instead of using a Facebook product (although Musk didn’t call Facebook or WhatsApp, specifically by name in any of their messages).
As for the controversy over WhatsApp, it’s a bit more complicated. While it’s not immediately clear whether Musk was referring to or even aware of WhatsApp’s current privacy dust, there is a growing backlash against the Facebook-owned messaging app resulting from the company’s project to implement a new privacy policy on February 8.
There is an excellent explicator of Ars Technica here, but the short version is that WhatsApp has introduced a new privacy policy that will take effect next month that no longer includes the language stating that it will allow users to opt out of data sharing with parent company Facebook. Instead, the new policy expressly describes how WhatsApp will share data (things like your phone number, profile name, and address book information) with Facebook.
“As a member of the Facebook family of companies, WhatsApp receives information from this family of companies and shares it with them,” says the new privacy policy. “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, personalize, support, and market our services and their offerings.”
As Ars reports, disabling hadn’t existed in the app for some time – it was a unique option introduced in 2016, and WhatsApp’s privacy policy has continued to reference it ever since. A Facebook spokesperson recounts The edge that the changes that will take effect next month are designed to address data sharing between Facebook and WhatsApp when it comes to messaging with businesses, and that nothing actually changes when it comes to discussions with consumers.
Facebook said it disclosed the changes in October with the announcement of new WhatsApp customer service and purchasing features, some of which went live last month. It also says it will honor any WhatsApp user’s opt-out preference, even if the opt-out option hasn’t been available to new users for years, according to PCMag. And if you live in Europe, WhatsApp will not share data with Facebook for ad targeting purposes under any circumstances, as clarified by Niamh Sweeney, WhatsApp policy director for Europe, Middle East market. and Africa, in a Twitter feed.
2/5 It has been incorrectly reported that the latest update to WhatsApp Terms of Service and Privacy Policy requires users in the European region to agree to data sharing with Facebook for advertising purposes in order to continue to use the service. It’s wrong.
– Niamh Sweeney (@NiamhSweeneyNYC) January 7, 2021
But what is happening now seems to be a bit of a social media context collapse, as WhatsApp users think they are now forced to share data with Facebook, even though it has been happening from the start if they did not pull out in 2016. None This is helped by recent attacks by Facebook and WhatsApp on Apple for the iPhone maker’s decision to impose new self-declared labels on iOS apps and its future plans to force manufacturers to ‘apps to request permission to track owners of Apple devices.
The new privacy policy notice doesn’t help Facebook’s cause either, as it tells unhappy users about the changes – which, again, relate to the way businesses manage their WhatsApp chats using the Facebook backend – to “delete their account”, with no further remedies provided.
All of this created a perfect social media storm in which WhatsApp users appear to be fleeing the platform in droves to join Signal, a non-profit encrypted messaging app outside of the biggest social network in the world. planet. Also worth mentioning is Signal Messenger, LLC, the software organization that manages Signal’s product development, was co-founded and funded by Brian Acton, the disillusioned WhatsApp co-founder who publicly criticized his former employer’s privacy practices.
Facebook declined to comment on the recording or to post a public blog post or statement regarding its planned WhatsApp privacy policy outside of Sweeney’s Europe-specific comments, which only adds to the confusion to this Stadium. But what’s good for Signal is that this combination of events is generating a lot of interest in its platform as a viable mobile messaging app and alternative to the Facebook ecosystem.
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