Encrypted Messaging Signal is seeing a flood of new users after Tesla CEO Elon Musk told his Twitter followers to use the app.
The influx of sign-ups on Thursday momentarily caused Signal to interrupt the transmission of the authentication codes needed to unlock new user accounts. However, the non-profit behind the app said it was ecstatic about the increasing inactivity.
Hours earlier, Musk tweeted “Use Signal” to his fans in an obvious effort to prevent users from using WhatsApp, a competing Facebook-owned messaging app.
The tweet came after WhatsApp revealed a new privacy policy about how to exchange user data with Facebook. The practice is nothing new, but the regulation change caught news of users’ complaints would have absolutely no means to keep their WhatsApp details isolated from Facebook—a corporation with a controversial digital privacy record.
Early Thursday morning, Musk chimed in by sharing a meme showing Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg brazenly lying to a kid about the data his company would gather.
By default, it’s easy to bash Facebook. But in fact, the company says the new WhatsApp Privacy Policy would mean no improvement for consumers when it comes to communicating with friends or family members. Instead, the update focuses on which data corporations can store and collect through WhatsApp chats with users.
Also, if you have already opted to stop WhatsApp from sharing data with Facebook on a one-time basis back in 2016, the firm says it will continue to respect your decision.
Then why does Musk say people to try Signal? Both WhatsApp and Signal indeed offer free end-to-end secure messaging. This means that even the provider, such as Facebook, cannot read the content of the messages—only the sender and the receiver of the messages.
However, Facebook is a corporation focused on mining data, primarily for ad-targeting purposes. Signal, on the other hand, is owned by a non-profit foundation. It has gone as far as refusing to finance venture capital to discourage financial profit from driving its emphasis. The software has received endorsements from the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.
As for Musk, he’s no Facebook user, and recently tweeted that the social network “sucks.” On Wednesday, he took another shot on Facebook in the wake of mob unrest in the U.S. Capitol.
