WhatsApp’s new privacy policy is outweighing it and is proving beneficial to rival apps. Such as a signal. After Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk, now the founder and CEO of Paytm, Vijay Shekhar Sharma of India has advocated the adoption of the Signal app. Sharma has said in the tweet that WhatsApp / Facebook is misusing their monopoly in India and taking the privacy of millions of users lightly. Paytm founder further said that we should shift to Signal app now.
They say, market has power. We are the largest market.
Here in India WhatsApp / Facebook are abusing their monopoly & taking away millions of users’ privacy for granted.
We should move on to @signalapp NOW.
It is upto us to become victim or reject such moves. https://t.co/iCmKoyLc5x– Vijay Shekhar Sharma (jayvijayshekhar) January 11, 2021
In fact, the new privacy policy of Facebook-owned WhatsApp is coming into effect from February 8, according to which it is being said that users’ data will be shared with Facebook, Instagram and other partner companies. If the users do not accept this privacy policy, their WhatsApp account will be automatically closed. However, the company has given clarification on this and said that it will only apply to business accounts and private chat will not have any effect on them. But in spite of this, users are disillusioned with WhatsApp and they are looking for an alternative. In a recent report by the news agency Reuters, censor tower data quoted that the new installation of WhatsApp in the first week of 2021 has fallen by 11 percent.
This is how the signal lottery started
WhatsApp is constantly being criticized due to the new terms, which is benefiting its rival apps. On January 7, Tesla CEO Elon Musk suggested that people use the ‘signal’, saying it was safe. After this, the process of downloading the signal started by the users, which is still going on.
Demand for messaging apps like Signal and Telegram has suddenly increased. Signal has secured the first place in the free apps category of the App Store in many countries of the world including India. On Saturday, a screenshot was shared on Signal’s official Twitter handle, showing it to be the first place above Whatsapp in India. Apart from India, Germany, France, Austria, Finland, Hong Kong, Switzerland have also topped the signal in the most downloaded apps.
Look at what you’ve done. ???????? pic.twitter.com/0YuqyZXtgP
— Signal (@signalapp) January 8, 2021
Absolute use of user data
All communications on the Signal app are encrypted end-to-end. The app claims that the user’s data is used sparingly. There will never be ads on the Signal app. It does not send backups of users to the cloud, but keeps the encrypted database secure in your phone. Also, the option to decide the security of the app according to your own has been given.
Some special features
- The Signal app has ‘Data Linked to You’ feature. After enabling this feature, no one can take the screenshot of that chat during chatting.
- Users can also send messages to themselves for the Note to Self feature. For this, you have to create your own group.