Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s media office and the country’s Ministry of Defense have told reporters that they are quitting WhatsApp Inc. and participate in a worldwide flight of the popular messaging program on new terms of use that have caused privacy issues.
The presidency will move its WhatsApp groups on January 11 to the encrypted messaging app BiP, a unit of Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri AS, he said in messages to the groups. The Ministry of Defense followed on Sunday. The conversion coincides with Erdogan’s broader campaign against social media platforms that activists say are intended to stifle discord.
Changes to WhatsApp’s terms and services that take effect on February 8 will allow it to share data with the parent company Facebook Inc. Users must agree to the new terms, which enable more targeted advertising, or lose access to their WhatsApp accounts.
WhatsApp competitor signal reports growth pains as new users rise
The pressure to earn heavier from WhatsApp came at a time when Facebook’s revenue growth is near a record low. While the message in many of the countries hardest hit by the coronavirus has risen by more than 50%, the company is increasing did not translate into more ad dollars because the popular services are not platforms where Facebook has a robust advertising business.
With WhatsApp’s data protection weakening, the richest man in the world, technology entrepreneur Elon Musk, has made a call to switch from WhatsApp to the encrypted competitor Signal. leading to an increase in new users of the service.
Turkcell reported a similar pattern in Turkey, with about 1 million new users joining BiP Messenger in the past 24 hours, according to a company statement on Sunday. The application has been downloaded more than 53 million times since it was launched in 2013, Turkcell said.
In his statement, Erdogan’s office called on journalists to switch to BiP. The Turkey Welfare Fund took a majority stake in Turkcell, the country’s largest mobile phone operator, in 2020.
Turkey tightens social media controls after Erdogan is convicted
Erdogan’s jettisoning of WhatsApp is his latest move against giants on social media, who recently fined Turkey for failing to appoint local representatives as required by a new law. Activists accusing him of increasingly authoritarian ways say the required appointments are part of a broader effort to gain more control over the platforms, while Turkey threatens to make them domestic incompatible if they do not comply.
Turkish authorities regularly arrest social media users on charges of, among other things, Erdogan’s insult and banned Wikipedia for three years until a court ruled a year ago that the restriction violated freedom of speech. Access to Twitter Inc. is obstructed.
Chinese-owned TikTok, which was among the companies, including Facebook, which was fined, agreed last week to appoint a local representative.
(Updates with the Ministry of Defense that also stop using WhatsApp add the fourth context on Facebook revenue)