HONG KONG / NEW DELHI / SINGAPORE – A topic has been going down on social media over the past week in Hong Kong, which has been increasingly under the watchful eye of Beijing after national security law imposed on the land last year.
“We did it from ICQ to MSN, from MSN to WhatsApp. It’s not that hard to switch to another app!” The line refers to instant messaging devices that have come and gone over 20 years.
It is a sign that people in the city have joined social media users across the globe in moving to other messaging platforms due to privacy concerns, after WhatsApp insulted many of users by rewriting its terms of use on January 6th.
The new terms basically allow Facebook, the owner of WhatsApp, access to certain personal information, such as contact lists, location, financial information and usage data.
Since then, WhatsApp competitors have seen a lot of downloads.
Signal, a private messaging app, recorded 7.5 million downloads worldwide between Jan. 6 and Jan. 10 following approval from the likes of Tesla CEO Elon Musk and former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. That marks a 43-fold increase from the previous week, according to Sensor Tower, an app-analytics company.
Awareness for data privacy has grown in Hong Kong following anti-government demonstrations in 2019, when campaigners used anonymous messaging apps to avoid surveillance. © Reuters
Another messaging app, Telegram, said it collected more than 25 million new users worldwide between January 10 and January 12, helping it reach over 500 million active users – compared to 2 billion monthly active WhatsApp users in February last year.
Despite a promise from WhatsApp that it will not receive, and that the company cannot access private conversations because they are automatically circulated end-to-end, it has not stopped the massive migration.
Signal and Telegram have topped both Apple and Google app stores in several countries over the past week, including the US, several European countries, and Asian countries where WhatsApp is a key messenger.
“After seeing the long list of personal data reports from WhatsApp, I decided to move [to] A signal to protect my privacy, ”said Kwok Ka-wing, chairman of the General Union of Hong Kong Financial Industry Workers, adding that it oversees the overdraft control of Big Tech companies.
Kwok is among the scores of activists, scholars and celebrities in Hong Kong who have asked people to ignore WhatsApp, which is used by nearly 80% of the city’s population. Awareness for privacy and data security has grown in the financial hub in the wake of widespread protests against the government in 2019, when activists used anonymous messaging apps to evade police surveillance.
“The migration to Signal reflects growing concerns with privacy and security in general and a loss of trust in WhatsApp, and Facebook in particular,” said Lokman Tsui, assistant professor at the University of China. the Hong Kong that specializes in online privacy and communications.
“Facebook promised not to force WhatsApp to share data with them when they bought WhatsApp,” he said. “They have broken that promise.”
Tsui said Signal, a nonprofit app that collects just the necessary metadata, made it stand out in a growing app field. Signal is backed by donations, including a $ 50 million loan from co-founder Brian Acton, who helped create WhatsApp and has long been a candidate for data privacy.
Some analysts believe that India, WhatsApp’s largest single market with a strong user base of 400 million, will not be significantly affected, despite the exodus being reported elsewhere. © Reuters
To bring more people to Signal, Fiona Wong, 26, a graphic designer in Hong Kong, has added to a public database that makes WhatsApp stickers usable on Signal.
“I hope this will give my friends and others more motivation to migrate,” she said. “At the end of the day, the success of a messaging app depends only on whether people around you are actively using it. , “she said.
WhatsApp’s new privacy rules aim to allow advertising placement on other Facebook-owned platforms. This will allow Facebook to monetize the free messaging service it received for $ 19 billion in 2014. Users who refuse to agree to the new terms starting February 8 can only take action limited use thereafter.
Hong Kong’s privacy watchdog has urged WhatsApp to delay the deadline and “provide practical alternatives” for those who do not agree to the new terms of continuing to use the service.
For now, Europe is the only region in the world where WhatsApp’s new privacy conditions do not apply, as the EU’s strict privacy laws gave authorities the power to impose fines on companies as much as 4% of global annual revenue if they run out of rules.
But in India, WhatsApp’s largest single market with a strong user base of 400 million, some analysts believe it won’t make a big impact despite the reported exodus in elsewhere.
“There will always be the most mobile up, the kind of strata of people with privacy education who move [to other apps], obviously, but we are not talking about two million users here, “Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst, founder and Head of Greyhound Research, told Nikkei Asia.
“Even those two million, at least, aren’t completely moving out of WhatsApp and moving into, say, Signal or Telegram. They’re adding,” he said.
“WhatsApp has committed itself to India in a very big way and has basically established an ecosystem of content players, of trading players around it that allows it to thrive in the country,” Gogia said . “Certainly from that perspective, neither Signal nor Telegram has made any visible promise to the country at all.”
Digital messaging users in Singapore have embraced competing platforms to WhatsApp, such as Telegram, even before WhatsApp announced its updated terms of service. (Photo by Akira Kodaka)
In fact, WhatsApp is commonly used by businesses in Asia to communicate with customers with many having chatbots designed specifically for the app. The company launched WhatsApp Business in early 2018 and they have entered the payment field in their two largest markets, India and Brazil.
Neha Bhatnagar, 40, a corporate communications professional in the Indian capital, said people on her contact list have started downloading Signal and Telegram in the last few days while still active on WhatsApp .
“I went into Signal on Monday just to see how many people I know are now on and found out that there were about 100 of over 1,050 contacts in my phone on Signal a But I still have all my personal and official bodies on WhatsApp and I plan to continue using the app, “she said, adding,” Why should I switch over? Data on your phone and laptop is already compromised [or] leaked no matter what app you are using. There is nothing called, ‘privacy.’ “
Gogia said, however, that privacy is a very personal concept. “What is very private to you, may not be private to me.” He also noted that sensitivity to privacy in India is lower than in other Asian countries.
Digital messaging users in Singapore have also embraced competing platforms to WhatsApp, such as Telegram, even before WhatsApp announced its updated terms of service. But WhatsApp is still widely used. In a report published last February, the data analysis platform DataReportal noted that 81% of internet users aged 16 to 64 in a survey say they used WhatsApp.
Su Lian Jye, chief analyst at technology analysis firm ABI Research, said he did not see an exodus from WhatsApp in Singapore.
“I think the conventional ideas that make WhatsApp sticky in Singapore are in the strength of WhatsApp branding, ease of use and simplicity,” he said. “In the West, privacy and personal data protection are the main concerns. People are actively seeking tools and solutions that prioritize these aspects. “
There are those in the city, however, who are looking to leave WhatsApp.
Justin Kan, 37, a financial advisor, has downloaded Telegram and Signal to increase his use of the Facebook-owned messaging platform. But Kan admits that he could not completely dig into WhatsApp as most of his calls are still using the platform, with less than 30 calls on Signal.
“I still have to use WhatsApp,” Kan said. “But lately, I’ve been seeing more and more people joining Signal and Telegram, which is encouraging. This means that a lot of people are also starting to see their the impact of apps like WhatsApp on our privacy. “
Similarly, Wong in Hong Kong admits that it cannot stop all Facebook-owned platforms overnight despite privacy concerns, as there are no other good options.
“But if WhatsApp migration can sustain, it will encourage more privacy-conscious companies to visit with Facebook and Instagram and give users more choices,” she said.