BY JANIECE CAMPBELL
A social media network used among many in the black, Caribbean and African community to avoid long-distance fees and calling cards, that instantly connects us to family back home, completely free of charge. Currently sustaining over 2 billion active users, WhatsApp has become the world’s most popular messaging application.
Originally founded by two former employees of Yahoo, it was acquired by Facebook in 2014 for a whopping total of $19 billion. Since then, the terms surrounding the app’s privacy policies have been questionable to say the least, especially when Facebook already has a bad reputation for privacy breaches and security vulnerabilities.
On January 6th, WhatsApp broadcasted a message to all of its users informing them of its new privacy policy, which would share data from the messaging app to Facebook. This data includes your battery level information, IP address, browser information, mobile network, phone number and internet service provider.
The worst part of it all? You cannot opt out of this change. WhatsApp made sure to make note: if you do not accept this new policy by February 8th, you will lose access to your account and be unable to use the app. They are literally forcing you to comply and forbidding you from their services if you refuse to!
Much uproar and confusion about this notice forced WhatsApp to clarify the update to its users. The company stated that the update “does not affect the privacy of your messages with friends or family in any way,” adding that the policy changes were necessary to allow users to message businesses on WhatsApp. The notice “provides further transparency about how we collect and use data,” they said.
But many people aren’t buying it.
In fact, mobile app analytics firm Sensor Tower noted within the same week WhatsApp revealed these changes, people immediately flocked to other telecommunications apps. Signal, a competing messaging app, saw 17.8 million downloads on Apple and Google during the week of January 5th to January 12th, an enormous increase from 285,000 the previous week. Telegram, another popular messaging app worldwide, also achieved ample success, surpassing 500 million active users and gaining more than 25 million new users within three days.
And WhatsApp’s statistics? Well, the downloads shrank from 11.3 million to 9.7 million in one week, a 14% decrease according to the Financial Times.
“Use Signal,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk vaguely tweeted the following day after the policy change announcement. “That’s @signalapp, for those who don’t speak Elon,” the infamous whistleblower and privacy advocate Edward Snowden quote-tweeted the two-word endorsement shortly after. When asked why the former National Security Agency employee recommended it, Snowden had a powerfully simple response: “I use it every day and I’m not dead yet.”
A quick look on Signal’s website will show you a series of testimonials from technologically advanced professionals promoting the security and stability of the app. “I trust Signal because it’s well built, but more importantly, because of how it’s built: open source, peer reviewed, and funded entirely by grants and donations. A refreshing model for how critical services should be built,” said Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter.
Could this be the end of WhatsApp? Well, who knows! Because of technology constantly being innovated, it’s known that these apps don’t last forever. Need I remind you of all the once-great but now expired social networks such as MySpace, MSN and BBM. These were just a few of the apps that we couldn’t get enough of until eventually they just phased out. And someday, it might just happen to all of our favourite apps today.
Regardless of your decision to accept or reject the new terms, WhatsApp is still by far the number one messaging medium and there’s no signs of a mass exodus just yet. But if you are leaning towards, there’s no shame in it! There are plenty of apps out there that can satisfy your texting needs and ease your mind off of unknowingly being monitored.
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