After the recent WhatsApp privacy changes took effect, the number of users of its alternative products Signal and Telegram surged almost immediately. In a short period of time, both messaging platforms have seen millions of new users download their apps.
Speaking of Signal first, the messaging app has seen a large influx of new users, and the company sees nearly a million new downloads every day.
For those who aren’t aware of it, Facebook recently updated its privacy policy for WhatsApp and other platforms, which has resulted in it receiving much criticism for its users’ data security and privacy.
Since then, many have switched to alternatives such as Signal, which last Sunday alone recorded over 810,000 downloads. According to an ETNews report, this meant an almost 18x increase in just a week.
WhatsApp’s latest privacy policy stipulates that the company reserves the right to share user data (including location, phone number) with its parent company Facebook and other social media platforms (such as Instagram and Messenger).
Similar to Signal, Telegram has also seen an influx of new users, and the platform has seen 25 million new downloads in the past 72 hours. In this figure, 38% of all new users are from Asia.
Other regions such as Europe accounted for 27%, while Latin America and the Middle East and North Africa accounted for 21% and 8% respectively.
As the world pays more and more attention to privacy, the migration from WhatsApp to other platforms has basically led to a large number of exodus, thus providing better privacy standards and user data protection. It remains to be seen how WhatsApp responds to the current dilemma.
