Encrypted messaging app Singal is seeing an influx of new users signing up for the service following an update to WhatsApp’s privacy policy owned by Facebook and an endorsement from Elon Musk on Twitter.
Such as Ars Technica reports, Signal has seen so many new users sign in that there have been delays in verifying phone numbers for new accounts.
RELATED: WHATSAPP MAKES SHARING DATA WITH FACEBOOK
Confusion surrounding WhatsApp privacy policy update
It all started when WhatsApp outlined a new privacy policy that will take effect next month. Compared to the previous policy, the new policy does not contain any indication that users can opt out of data sharing with the parent company Facebook.
Instead, the policy directly states that WhatsApp will share data (including your phone number, profile name and address book information) with Facebook.
“As part of the Facebook family of companies, WhatsApp receives information from and shares information with this family of companies,” said the new privacy policy says.
“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,” continues it.
Now Facebook employees have gone so far as to claim rival social media platform Twitter that nothing has actually changed.
2/5 It has been falsely reported that the latest update to WhatsApp’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy requires that users in the European region agree to share data with Facebook for advertising purposes in order to continue using the service. This is wrong.
– Niamh Sweeney (@NiamhSweeneyNYC) January 7, 2021
Still, several posters responded to Niamh Sweeney’s wire above, stating that they had deleted their WhatsApp accounts.
Signal’s Elon Approval
Around the same time, Elon Musk, who has been critical of Facebook lately, tweeted “Use Signal” to his 41.6 million followers.
Use Signal
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 7, 2021
Musk, who was recently billed as the world’s richest man, too Posted a meme that satirizes Facebook’s role in this week’s attack on Congress.
All of this appears to have had a cumulative effect, leading millions of users to leave WhatsApp for Signal, a privacy-focused nonprofit co-founded and funded by Brian Acton., the WhatsApp co-founder who left the company when he became disappointed with Facebook’s privacy practices.
Verification codes are currently delayed with several providers because so many new people are now trying to join Signal (we can barely register our excitement). We work with carriers to resolve this as quickly as possible. Hang in there.
– Signal (@signalapp) January 7, 2021
Such as The edge points out that WhatsApp has released a lengthy statement saying that the policy update will not really change the way data is shared between the messaging app and Facebook.
It now appears that years of shady practices epitomized by the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal may be coming to a head, with many users leaving WhatsApp for good.