WhatsApp has posted a new Frequently Asked Questions page on the website regarding the upcoming user agreement, or privacy policy update. In this way, the company summarizes its stance on user privacy in response to popular backlash. The main problem is related to WhatsApp’s data sharing procedures with Facebook, and many users think that the updated privacy policy, which will take effect on February 8, will require the sharing of sensitive profile information with WhatsApp’s parent company Facebook.
Actually this is not true. The update has nothing to do with consumer chats or profile data, and instead the change is designed to outline how businesses using WhatsApp for customer service may store logs of their chats on Facebook servers. This is something the company thinks it should disclose in its privacy policy. It is preparing to do this after previewing the upcoming changes in business conversations last October.
WhatsApp response helped apps like BiP and Telegram
But coupled with the wave of misinformation on social media, Facebook’s lousy past performance on privacy, and its bad reputation for puzzling over changes to its various service contracts, WhatsApp faced a huge backlash and users began to flee to rival instant messaging services like BiP, Signal, and Telgram.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk also advertised Signal by posting a tweet last week, which we can translate to more than 42 million followers as “Use Signal”. As the discussions grew, instant messaging apps like Signal, Telegram, BiP, Dedi and so on became the most downloaded apps on Android and iOS app stores. Currently App Store in Turkey Telegram is the most downloaded applications, announced that more than 25 million users in the last 72 hours register.
