Tesla CEO Elon Musk told his Twitter followers to use encrypted messaging app Signal in place of whatsapp. The flood of sign-ups on Thursday briefly caused Signal to delay sending out the verification codes needed to activate new user accounts. Nevertheless, the nonprofit behind the app said it’s ecstatic about the surge in activity.
Hours earlier, Musk tweeted to his followers “Use Signal” in an apparent attempt to discourage people from using WhatsApp, a rival messaging app owned by Facebook.
The tweet came after WhatsApp announced a new privacy policy covering how it can share user data with Facebook. The practice is nothing new, but the policy update grabbed headlines over concerns users will have almost no way to keep their WhatsApp data separate from Facebook-a company with a notorious record on digital privacy.
On early Thursday morning, Musk chimed in by posting a meme depicting Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg brazenly lying to a child about the data his company can collect.
It’s certainly easy to bash Facebook. But the company says in practice the new WhatsApp privacy policy will mean no change for users when it comes to chats with friends or family members. Instead, the update is mainly about the data businesses can store and collect over WhatsApp chats with users.
However, Facebook is a business focused on mining people’s data largely for ad-targeting purposes. Signal, on the other hand, is run by a nonprofit foundation. It’s gone as far to refuse venture capital funding to prevent financial profit from driving its focus. The app has also received endorsements from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.
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