WhatsApp Delays Roll-Out Of New Privacy Rules, While Telegram Gains 25M Users In 3 Days

Facebook Inc’s FB WhatsApp messaging service says it is delaying a new privacy policy update.

What Happened: WhatsApp announced in a blog post on Friday that it is postponing its new privacy policy following widespread criticism and millions of users of users fleeing the platform.

“We’ve heard from so many people how much confusion there is around our recent update. There's been a lot of misinformation causing concern and we want to help everyone understand our principles and the facts,” the post says.

In December, the messaging app notified its users of a new policy that was supposed to take effect Feb. 8. According to the notification, users’ data might have been provided to other Facebook entities "to help operate, provide, improve, understand, customize, support and market our services and their offerings." If users would not accept the new policy, they would be logged out and lose access to their data.

This particular update led to a lot of confusion and criticism.

Now WhatsApp says the policy rollout will not happen until May 15 and emphasizes it’ll “always protect your personal conversation.”

“Neither WhatsApp nor Facebook can see these private messages. It’s why we don’t keep logs of who everyone’s messaging or calling. We also can’t see your shared location and we don’t share your contacts with Facebook," the company said.

Why It Matters: Meanwhile, messaging apps like Signal and Telegram are gaining millions of new users.

Telegram, founded by Russian entrepreneur Pavel Durov, is an encrypted messaging app launched in 2013.

On Jan. 12, it announced it had surpassed 500 million active users, gaining more than 25 million new ones in the past 72 hours. 

Durov on Thursday described the WhatsApp “exodus” as “the largest digital migration in human history.” He said the presidents of France and Singapore and the prime minister of Israel have been among those who joined the platform in recent days.