WhatsApp loses millions of followers after announcing new terms

Signal gained 7.5 million users globally, according to figures shared by the UK parliament’s home affairs committee

WhatsApp lost millions of followers after announcing its new terms of services which would allow parent company Facebook and its divisions to collect user data, including phone numbers and location.

In Pakistan, following the release of the new terms of service, users shifted to alternatives such as Signal and Telegram over privacy concerns. At the beginning of January, WhatsApp was the most downloaded app in the country however by January 26th the app went down to the third position, reports Sensor Tower.

Further, data collected by App Annie, an analytic firm, suggests that the popular messaging service went down from the eighth most downloaded app in the UK at the beginning of the month to the 23rd by 12 January. On the other hand, Signal became the most downloaded app in the country by January 9.

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Over the first three weeks of January, Signal has gained 7.5 million users globally, according to figures shared by the UK parliament’s home affairs committee, and Telegram has gained 25 million, reports The Guardian.

After receiving backlash, the Facebook-owned messaging service clarified that the new terms of service will not compromise the privacy of user messages with friends or family in any way.

“We want to be clear that the policy update does not affect the privacy of your messages with friends or family in any way. Instead, this update includes changes related to messaging a business on WhatsApp, which is optional, and provides further transparency about how we collect and use data,” says WhatsApp.

As user exodus to other apps escalated, WhatsApp announced that it will delay the implementation of its new policy until May 15.

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“These types of shifts in messaging and social networking apps are not unusual. Due to the nature of social apps and how the primary functionality involves communicating with others, their growth can often move quite quickly, based on current events. We’ve seen growing demand over the last few years for encrypted messaging and apps focused on privacy,” says Amir Ghodrati, App Annie’s director of market insights.

“Messaging apps that provide privacy features saw the greatest engagement growth in [the first half of] 2020. These apps saw on average 30% more active users than the alternatives. Apps like Signal, Telegram, Wickr, and WhatsApp offer privacy features ranging from end-to-end encrypted data transfer to ‘self-destructing messages’,” he said.