Fox News contributor Joe Concha of Big Tech companies censoring Parler, causing the site to go offline and discuss the bias on social media.
From Monday to Tuesday, the private messaging app Signal ranked as the free app 1 in the App Store and Google Play.
| Ticker | Safety | Last | Alter | Alter% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AAPL | APPLE INC. | 128.80 | -0.18 | -0.14% |
| GOOGL | ALPHABET INC. | 1 737.43 | -18.86 | -1.07% |
According to the app data and analysis website Apptopia, the app received approximately 1.3 million worldwide downloads in the App Store on Monday.
“We estimate Signal has been installed 63.1 million times in its lifetime. Signal has been breaking its own daily download records since Saturday,” Adam Blacker, vice president of Apptopia Insights, told FOX Business.
Signal is an encrypted messaging application, which means that the company does not have access to any messages or calls made by users on the app.
WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT SIGN, THE SAFE MESSAGE APP RISING IN POPULAR
“These types of shifts in messaging and social networking applications are not uncommon,” said Amir Ghodrati, director of market insights for app analytics company App Annie, in a statement. “Because of the nature of social applications and how its primary function involves communicating with others, its growth can move very rapidly, based on current events.”
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He added that “users consistently spend more time on messaging apps than on social media apps; on average 67% more time from H1 2020. Messaging apps that offer privacy features experienced the greatest growth in engagement in H1 2020. These apps saw an average of 30 % more active users than the alternatives. “
Signal app (credit: Signal) (Sein)
According to App Annie, on January 4, Signal reached the number 750 in the total download points in the US. The number continued to jump until the app dropped to No. 1 in overall U.S. downloads Sunday.
The app became very popular after people like Edward Snowden tweeted about it in 2015, with Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently urging his followers to use the service while taking a chance on Facebook at the same time has.
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The encrypted messaging app Telegram also rose to number 2 among free apps on Google Play and in the App Store on Tuesday.
The two apps recently came into the spotlight after some people using the Facebook-encrypted messaging app WhatsApp expressed their concern about a privacy update that starts in February and was only announced in October.
The buttons of Telegram, WhatsApp, Facebook, Messages and other apps on the screen of an iPhone. (iStock)
The update states that businesses that communicate with WhatsApp users via the app, by phone or by email, can ‘see’ what users are saying ‘and that they may use the information for their own marketing purposes, which may include ads on Facebook’ if users prefer to share that information.
| Ticker | Safety | Last | Alter | Alter% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FB | FACEBOOK INC. | 251.09 | -5.75 | -2.24% |
WhatsApp clarified the update later in a January message, saying Facebook will not have access to any of the users’ private messages or calls.
“We want to make it clear that the policy update does not in any way affect the privacy of your messages with friends or family. Instead, this update contains changes related to the message to a business on WhatsApp, which is optional, and offers it’s transparency about how we collect and use data, ‘the app said in a blog post.
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WhatsApp was on January 27 and January 7 respectively in the overall US downloads at number 27 and no. 21, until it reached number 38 on Sunday.
WhatsApp said Facebook will not have access to its private messages or calls, shared locations, contacts or groups. Users can also make their messages disappear if they prefer.
Big Tech companies have made a number of policy changes and updates since the Capitol riots on Wednesday in an effort to suppress violent or conspiracy rhetoric on their platforms, causing uncensored social applications such as Parler, Gab, Signal and Telegram to see increase in downloads.
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Fox News’ Chris Ciaccia contributed to this report.