WhatsApp, the popular messenger from Facebook, has shown a screen out of nowhere that forces users to accept the new privacy policy. Or else the accounts will be deleted by Feb 8th, 2021.
They thought WhatsApp is the only messenger people use in addiction and cannot move away from it even they impose strict data snooping policies. It didn't happen. The messenger with 2 billion has got a lot of backlashes that people started looking for alternatives. If Telegram messenger being one of them, Signal is the other.
You might have heard about Telegram, or even might have had an account to download stuff illegally (don't say you didn't know about it). But Signal is new to everyone as it promotes super privacy and was recommended by the NSA whistleblower, Edward Snowden a year ago.
If you are aware, Elon Musk, the real-life Ironman also promoted Signal and announced publicly that he would donate to the app. Edward Snowden also supports his recommendation again thereby adding fuel to the fire.
Look at the trial of the tweets by Edward Snowden trying to help Signal all along through his tweets
As a result, the followers and admirers of both men have started flocking to the Signal app. Even the servers of the app, due to the unexpected traffic, have been crashed a couple of times by far.
WhatsApp, watching all the drama with a lot of attitude towards its new privacy policy has backdown. It has taken the word back and announced the new postponed date, till May 15th, for the implementation of their new data-snooping policies in a new blog post.
"We’re now moving back the date on which people will be asked to review and accept the terms. No one will have their account suspended or deleted on February 8," they say in their blog post.
Does this mean your data is safe?
Don't be blinded by the lights. Facebook has been in the news multiple times and even appeared in a congress hearing about people's privacy. We all know that it has read all our call data in the past and the congress hearing has put a check on it.The integration of all three Facebook-owned apps, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook itself is a clear sign that they are going to combine the data for better marketing analysis on respective advertising platforms.
Be it the new privacy policy update or not, there is no guarantee that your data is not used by this social media giant anyway. The notification screen is all paperwork to be called at precision.
What to do now?
Edward Snowden and Elon Musk are right. Switch to Signal. I'm not even sure about the security measure on Telegram. It's more of a dark web with more illegal content. Local governments might ban it soon due to this piracy encouragement on the platform. So Signal app is still the best option at this point in time.
Hoping that you are smart :)
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