WhatsApp may have delayed its plans to share its commercial user data with parent company Facebook due to global screams over privacy, but even if it continues with the plans, digital viewers say it is unlikely there will ever be an exit from the app in Africa will be.
On January 4, WhatsApp’s 2 billion users started receiving a message accepting news terms for an updated privacy policy, but unlike standard updates, which users frequently click on without reading them, it immediately aroused suspicion and concerns that quickly spread worldwide. has become. The concern was to allow WhatsApp to share user data with Facebook, Instagram and other third-party businesses.
The outcry was so loud that WhatsApp has now postponed the update until mid-May, three months away from the initial deadline of February 8 blaming the confusion surrounding the announcement.
But damage has already been done and millions of users have downloaded smaller competitor messaging services like Signal and Telegram, emphasizing the privacy of users.
WhatsApp is extremely popular in Africa and for some people it is often their first and only interaction with the internet. In some of the largest African countries, even unauthorized modified versions of the app are used more than Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. In Zimbabwe, the app accounted for about half of internet traffic in 2017.
WhatsApp is now part of their daily lives. Leaving the app for an unknown service due to a new privacy policy is really unthinkable. ”
WhatsApp has become a one-stop-shop among mainland users for primary communication, business and as a media tool to provide information and socialization and even for spreading misinformation. It is also used to provide solutions to social issues.
‘The network effects [in Africa] is powerful, ” Bryan Pon, co-founder of Caribou Data, an analytics firm focused on emerging markets, tells Quartz Africa.
The new privacy policy would significantly increase the amount of information harvested from WhatsApp users to Facebook, which would be used in the future, says Ray Walsh, a digital privacy expert at ProPrivacy, a source for digital freedom. WhatsApp for Business users ”s phone numbers, device-level identifications, location data, interaction information and metadata and transactions’ are the targets. ‘
As for WhatsApp, there is a common belief that users’ data and messages can be shared with Facebook, which has a problematic reputation regarding user privacy.
Both Sein and Telegram have benefited from speculation about how WhatsApp, one of the first mainstream encrypted messaging apps, exposes its billions of users to lax privacy practices. Signal has even experienced technical difficulties due to the large influx of new users, and according to Sensor Tower, it has now been downloaded 8.8 million times worldwide from just 246,000 the week before WhatsApp’s announcement on January 4th. While Telegram jumped from 6.5 million downloads to 11.3 million.
Unlike WhatsApp, whose industry integration and functionality caters to millions of business owners in Africa, none of the apps so far offer an African focus.
Tosin Akapo, a Whatsapp Business user, does not see the need to leave the app, despite the recent policy update. “WhatsApp is the easiest,” she tells Quartz Africa. “People contact me easily.” While Akapo regrets the limited functionality of Telegram, the Nigerian businesswoman plans to download Signal but does not see her leaving WhatsApp.
WhatsApp is now part of their daily lives. Leaving the app for an unknown service due to a new privacy policy is really unthinkable, ‘says Yao Sylvain, director of App Media Afrique in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.
Facebook’s plan to harvest WhatsApp’s data raises questions, says Moses Karanja, a researcher at The Citizen Lab in Nairobi. ‘Move fast, break things’. This used to be the internal mantra of Facebook. They seem to know that opt-ins, nudges and attraction do not work as well for them as command and domination do. ”
This can best be described as data monopoly, or in the case of Africa, digital colonization, says Julie Owono, executive director of Internet Without Borders. ‘African regulators play an important role: to ensure that internet access is affordable so that everyone can access the internet and thus exercise the fundamental right to freedom of expression, without sacrificing the fundamental right to privacy. . ”
Ultimately, WhatsApp’s usability means little will change, Pon says. “It’s too big and too entrenched in daily life to go anywhere.”
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