Why is everyone leaving WhatsApp?

In recent news, people chose to leave WhatsApp; we are talking millions. 

People chose to leave WhatsApp due to its new privacy update rolling out in the coming months. The update has already been delayed once we won’t be surprised if it gets pushed back again and this whole privacy update is changed. 

For those that are unaware Facebook purchased WhatsApp for a reported $19 billion in 2014.

WhatsApp’s new privacy policy states that “those third-party services may receive information about what you or others share with them. For example, if you use a data backup service integrated with our Services (like iCloud or Google Drive), they will receive information you share with them, such as your WhatsApp messages.” this is very concerning for some people as people use WhatsApp for various things, some use it for group chats which could be a family chat to keep in touch especially during the lockdown, others for work and some for friends, all of these chats are personal to us, whether they are discussing funeral arrangements, somebodies finances or even if it used for sharing funny pictures and videos these are not things that people want to share with marketers. 

What can I do to protect myself?

The two contenders for WhatsApp now are Signal and Telegram. I have used Signal. I tried to transfer one of my group chats over, most people joined in but like most habits, people returned to WhatApp. I enjoy Signal and will continue to use it. The only issue I found with Signal was it had significant downtime which is understandable considering it had exploded in popularity and needed to upgrade its servers to handle the load. At the time of writing this Signal has hit 50 million downloads which in comparison to WhatsApps 1 billion isn’t impressive but the speed it has grown is nothing short of phenomenal. 

I found Signal easy to use, quick to set up and I like that you can react to messages much like Facebook Messenger. As a little security feature Signal will ask for your pin every 24 hrs. You can create group chats by sending a link and then as the group admin, you will be notified that someone would like to join your chat. 

I can’t comment on Telegram as I have not used it. 

To the best of my knowledge, both of these apps do not store any of your data which in a world where everyone knows everything it’s nice to have a little privacy.