Munsif Vengattil and Eva Mathews Jan 14, 2021 – 9.08am https://www.afr.com/technology/sign...th-after-whatsapp-controversy-20210114-p56tzw Messaging app Signal has enjoyed "unprecedented" growth following a controversial change in rival WhatsApp's privacy terms and is looking to hire more staff as it seeks to bolster the service and supporting infrastructure, the head of its controlling foundation said on Wednesday. Along with another encrypted app, Telegram, Signal has been the main beneficiary of online outrage around the changes announced last week, which require WhatsApp users to share their data with both Facebook and Instagram. The logo of encrypted communications app Signal. Getty Telegram said on Wednesday it had surpassed 500 million active users globally. Brian Acton, who co-founded WhatsApp before selling it to Facebook and then co-founding the Signal Foundation, declined to give equivalent data for Signal, but said that the expansion in recent days had been "vertical". "We've seen unprecedented growth this past week," Acton said in an email to Reuters. "It's safe to say that because of this record growth, we're even more interested in finding talented people." He also said Signal was working to improve its video and group chat functions, allowing it to compete better with WhatsApp, Microsoft Teams and other conferencing apps that have become vital to day-to-day life over the past year. Signal was downloaded by 17.8 million users over the past seven days, a 62-fold rise from the previous week, according to data from Sensor Tower. WhatsApp was downloaded by 10.6 million users during the same period, a 17 per cent decline. Privacy advocates have jumped on the WhatsApp changes, pointing to what they say is Facebook's poor track record of supporting consumers' interests when handling their data. Many suggested users migrate to other platforms. The non-profit Signal Foundation based in Silicon Valley, which now oversees the app, was launched in February 2018 with Acton providing initial funding of $US50 million. It has existed on donations since – Tesla chief executive officer Elon Musk among supporters – and Acton said there were no plans to seek different sources of funding. "Millions of people value privacy enough to sustain it and we're trying to demonstrate that there is an alternative to the ad-based business models that exploit user privacy," Acton said, adding donations were "pouring in". Reuters
Share info with FB & then - knock knock, FBI, open up. Multiple people have been caught by police, in our country, via FB's messenger. The FB themselfs, have send the pics to police & those were silly ,,crimes." (Sex pics etc) Then public was making the joke out of cops that ,,Finaly, they caught TRUE criminals". Maybe Elon really had Signal in mind. Afterall, he told many times ,,Im not using FB". Why, just a guess - reasons above. Company secrets leaking all over the place, because some FB pic moderator can see the chat & pics. P.s insta also got caught spying on people via cams. Word. You're taking a s***/having fun with girl & they're watching. Bug. Uhm.
So the guy sold WhatApp to FB basically paving the way for FB to get user data from WhatApp and then co-finds Signal for Signal to profit from WhatApp's demise from it being forced to share data with FB due to his own action? The guy should be sued by WhatsApp for conflict of interest and sabotage and corporate espionage.
Well FB now owns Whatsapp so WhatsApp's users IS FB's users now so they are just accessing their own users' data. You can hardly blame them for that. It's this Brian guy who sold WhatsApp to FB. Why did he sell WhatsApp to FB in the first place?
Prolly 'cause of money an' FB were the highest bidder. FB not stupid, knew there was a nice mkt here for extracting more data out of sheeple. 'If you're not paying for the product, you are the product'.
FB should be sued for being dumbasses and not putting a non-compete agreement on the guy when buying Whatsapp. I downloaded signal today, looks good so far, their PC platform needs to be web based though.