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Elon Musk recommends ‘Signal’ after WhatsApp changes privacy policy

WhatsApp’s new privacy policy will go into effect on February 8

musk-reu-signal-logo Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter to recommend the Signal app to users

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has asked people to “use Signal” after WhatsApp gave an ultimatum to its users to accept its privacy policy changes or delete their account should they choose to reject it by February 8.

Musk, who is now the richest man in the world, also tweeted the ‘domino effect’ meme, in which it is implied that Facebook (parent company of WhatsApp) began as a platform to assess women on campus, but is now responsible for the violence that took place at the US Capitol in Washington.

This is not the first Musk has made his dislike for Facebook known.

Early last year, Musk urged users on Twitter to delete their Facebook accounts because the platform was “lame” and later said “Facebook sucks”. He had earlier deleted the Facebook pages for his companies, including that of SpaceX, making his abhorrence for the platform evident.

Musk’s tweet has led to a plethora of people trying to sign up for Signal. This caused so much traffic on its servers that several users complained about not getting verification codes among other issues. However, Signal admitted that it was not prepared for the sudden flood of new users and assured them that it will be resolved soon.

“We are working with carriers to resolve this as quickly as possible. Hang in there,” Signal tweeted.

Signal is similar to WhatsApp, but is more privacy-focussed. It is reportedly widely used by security experts, privacy researchers, academics. Signal and WhatsApp uses the same end-to-end encryption protocol. However, Signal is open source, and WhatsApp is not.

WhatsApp’s new privacy policy change means that it will be sharing user data, including financial data and location, and chat records with its parent company Facebook for businesses. This has raised eyebrows among users, not to mention a lot of concern for those who value their privacy.

WhatsApp’s new policy will go into effect on February 8 this year.