- The Signal message encryption service will not replace WhatsApp, predicted the co-founder of both applications.
- Signal downloads have skyrocketed since rival WhatsApp announced it would make users share some personal data with the parent company Facebook.
- Brian Acton, executive chairman of the Signal Foundation, said there was room for both applications. “I have no desire to do all the things WhatsApp does,” he told TechCrunch.
- He expected people to depend on Signal to talk to family and close friends, while continuing to talk to others via WhatsApp, he said.
- Acton founded WhatsApp and then sold it to Facebook for $ 22 billion in 2014, before leaving the company in 2017.
- Visit the Business Insider home page for more stories.
Downloads of the Signal encrypted messaging app have skyrocketed since rival WhatsApp announced it would make users share some personal data with parent company Facebook – but Signal will not replace WhatsApp, predicted their co-founder.
The two applications serve different purposes, Brian Acton told TechCrunch on Wednesday. Acton is the executive chairman of the Signal Foundation, which co-founded after leaving WhatsApp in 2017. Acton founded WhatsApp and then sold it to Facebook for $ 22 billion in 2014.
“I have no desire to do all the things WhatsApp does,” said Acton, although he did not specify which WhatsApp features he does not plan to replicate.
He expects people to trust Signal to talk to family and close friends, while continuing to talk to others via WhatsApp, he said.
“My desire is to give people a choice,” Acton told the publication. “It is not strictly a winning scenario takes everything.”
Read More: Banning Trump from social media is just ‘a bandage wound,’ critics say – but no one can agree on the best way to eliminate the contagion of disinformation
Acton has openly criticized Facebook: in 2018, he asked Facebook users to delete their accounts.
He left WhatsApp in 2017 “due to differences around the use of customer data and targeted advertising”.
He then co-founded Signal in 2018, with current CEO Moxie Marlinspike, as a rival chat app, using $ 50 million of his own money. Since its inception, Signal has focused on privacy and has promised to never sell user data or display ads on the app.
On January 6, WhatsApp announced that it was changing its terms of service to force users to share some personal data, including phone numbers and locations, with Facebook. Users will lose access in February if they do not agree with the changes.
Since then, WhatsApp has clarified that this only affects users outside the European Union and the United Kingdom, and said the change “does not affect the privacy of your messages with friends or family in any way”.
The changes are now driving people to use Signal, Acton told TechCrunch.
“The smallest of events helped trigger the greatest of results,” he said.
Signal was installed about 7.5 million times on the App Store and Google Play between January 6 and 10, application analyst Sensor Tower told Insider – an increase of 4,200% over the previous week.
The other Telegram encrypted messaging app also saw a huge increase in downloads after the WhatsApp data sharing announcement. Added more than 25 million new users between Saturday and Tuesday.
“We are also excited to be having conversations about online privacy and digital security and people are turning to Signal as the answer to these questions,” Acton told TechCrunch.
And because Signal is funded by donations from users rather than ads or data sales, the small team of less than 50 employees is motivated to continue improving the app, Acton said.
“The idea is that we want to win this donation,” he told TechCrunch. “The only way to earn this donation is to build an innovative and charming product.”