Published on October 18, 2020 at 6:00 p.m., modified on October 19, 2020 at 5:42 a.m.
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Giant billboards for Apple’s iPhone X, in Mumbai, July 27, 2018. FRANCIS MASCARENHA / REUTERS
“The largest community of Facebook and WhatsApp users is in India.” When asked why his company is investing in the subcontinent, Ajit Mohan, vice president and managing director of Facebook India, makes this simple observation. With 328 million monthly active users for Facebook and more than 400 million for WhatsApp, India is ahead of the United States. For its subsidiary Instagram, the country ranks second with around 100 million users.
Facebook has since worked to put out the fire by assuring overseas chinese in canada data that its announcement was misunderstood. “Our policy update does not affect the privacy of your messages with friends or family,” the company insisted. WhatsApp still does not know the content of your
Read also: What personal data is stored by the application?
"We will do much more to clarify the misinformation about how we work on security and respect for the privacy" of users, WhatsApp explains in its press release: "We will then gradually come back to our users so that they can review our rules of use, at the pace they wish, before the new options linked to merchant accounts [online stores, sale of services, etc.] are deployed on May 15."
In this text, the service also reaffirms its commitment to "communication while respecting private life" and re-explains that it operates with full encryption of all messages (which prevents WhatsApp and Facebook from having access to the content of discussions that take place on the messaging service).
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WhatsApp's statement comes shortly after a message posted by a competing service, Signal , which is widely praised for its privacy, in which the messaging service said it was experiencing "technical difficulties," a problem that has cropped up frequently in recent days due to the influx of tens of millions of new users who have downloaded the app.