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Twitter's New Method for Reporting Harmful Content Is Live
Twitter's New Method for Reporting Harmful Content Is Live
Twitter's plans for revamping how users can report policy violations is now available globally, the company said Friday.
The overhauled process was first outlined in a December blog post. The idea is to shift the focus to asking what happened, instead of asking the person doing the reporting to classify the incident.
"The vast majority of what people are reporting on fall within a much larger gray spectrum that don't meet the specific criteria of Twitter violations, but they're still reporting what they are experiencing as deeply problematic and highly upsetting," said Renna Al-Yassini, a senior UX manager on the team, in that December post.
Twitter said it saw the number of actionable reports increase by 50% using the new system. The company also said its prior system left people feeling frustrated. The new approach was first tested within a small group of users in the US.
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Facebook, YouTube to Restrict Some Russian State-Controlled Media Across Europe
Facebook, YouTube to Restrict Some Russian State-Controlled Media Across Europe
Facebook, YouTube and other social networks are restricting access to Russian state-controlled media outlets RT and Sputnik across Europe, amid calls to crack down on disinformation. The move will likely heighten tensions between some of the world's most popular social networks and the Russian government.
Facebook's parent company, Meta, said Monday that it will limit the accessibility of Sputnik and RT across the European Union.
"We have received requests from a number of governments and the EU to take further steps in relation to Russian state-controlled media. Given the exceptional nature of the current situation, we will be restricting access to RT and Sputnik across the EU at this time," Nick Clegg, who oversees global affairs at Meta and is a former UK deputy prime minister, said in a tweet.
Clegg didn't respond to questions on Twitter about what the restrictions entail, how many requests Meta has received and from which governments or how many Facebook users will be impacted by these restrictions. Clegg also didn't say when these restrictions would start. RT's Facebook page has 7.4 million followers and Sputnik's Facebook page has 1.4 million followers. The media outlets are also on Facebook-owned Instagram, a photo and video service. RT has 839,000 followers on Instagram and Sputnik has 116,000 followers.
On Tuesday, Google said in a post on Twitter that it would block YouTube channels connected to RT and Sputnik across Europe.
"Due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, we're blocking YouTube channels connected to RT and Sputnik across Europe, effective immediately," reads a tweet from the official Google Europe account. "It'll take time for our systems to fully ramp up. Our teams continue to monitor the situation around the clock to take swift action."
Google, the video giant's parent company, didn't immediately respond to questions on how many YouTube channels would be blocked. RT's main channel on YouTube has more than 4.6 million subscribers, while Sputnik has over 300,000 subscribers.
Facebook's move came a day after Meta announced it had restricted access to several accounts, including from Russian state-controlled media, in Ukraine after a request from the government there. Meta has been facing more pressure to take action against these media outlets for spreading propaganda and false claims after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
On Sunday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a tweet that the EU's executive branch is developing tools to ban "toxic and harmful disinformation" published by RT and Sputnik and their subsidiaries. The EU is an economic and political union of 27 countries, including France, Germany and Spain.
Following Facebook's move on Tuesday, RT took issue with unspecified comments from European government officials and actions by social media platforms, with its deputy editor-in-chief saying in a statement that no one had pointed to specific evidence of falsehoods appearing on its site during the Ukraine crisis. In its own statement, Sputnik's press arm characterized the restrictions as an "information war against the Russian media."
RT and Sputnik are on other social media sites, including Twitter and TikTok. A spokeswoman for TikTok said users in the EU won't see content from RT's and Sputnik's accounts. Twitter started labeling state-affiliated media, but a spokeswoman said the company had "nothing to share at this time" when asked if the company was also planning to restrict RT and Sputnik.
The rare move by Meta also raises questions about whether Russia will further restrict access to Facebook and Instagram. Ukrainians have put pressure on Facebook to remove access to the main social network and Instagram in Russia, but Clegg said Sunday those platforms are also being used by protesters and as a source of independent information. "The Russian Government is already throttling our platform to prevent these activities. We believe turning off our services would silence important expression at a crucial time," Clegg said in a tweet on Sunday.
Russia said last week that it's partly restricting access to Facebook after the social network refused to stop fact-checking and labeling content posted on Facebook by four Russian state-owned media organizations. Russia's telecommunications regulator, Roskomnadzor, alleges Facebook violated "fundamental human rights" by restricting the country's state-controlled media.
Facebook and YouTube have also been barring ads from Russia state media. Twitter also said last week that it's temporarily pausing ads in Ukraine and Russia.
On Sunday, Meta also announced that it removed a network of about 40 fake accounts, Pages and Groups on Facebook and Instagram from Russia and Ukraine. Meta said some of these accounts pretended to be news editors and ran fake news websites and published stories that included "claims about the West betraying Ukraine and Ukraine being a failed state." Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp, created a special operations center with experts who speak Ukrainian and Russian to help monitor its platform.
CNET's Carrie Mihalcik contributed to this report.
Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram coming back online after widespread outage
Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram coming back online after widespread outage
Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram are starting to come back online after a widespread outage lasted more than six hours on Monday, disrupting communications for the company's roughly 3 billion users.
"To the huge community of people and businesses around the world who depend on us: we're sorry. We've been working hard to restore access to our apps and services and are happy to report they are coming back online now. Thank you for bearing with us," Facebook said in a tweet.
The three social networks -- all owned by Facebook -- started having issues around 11:40 a.m. ET, according to Down Detector, a crowdsourced website that tracks online outages.
The company acknowledged that it was having issues shortly after noon ET, saying in a tweet from its WhatsApp account that it's "working to get things back to normal and will send an update here as soon as possible." Similar messages were shared on the Twitter accounts for Facebook and Facebook Messenger.
Hours later, Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer said in a tweet that the company was "experiencing networking issues" and working as fast as possible "debug and restore" its services.
Facebook later said in a company blog that it believed a "faulty configuration" change was the cause of the outage
The outage -- and the resulting reaction on Twitter -- underscores both our dependency on the social networks and the love-hate relationship they inspire. Being unable to post on Facebook or Instagram elicited equal parts frustration and relief, with some relishing the break from being constantly connected to our digital lives. Ironically, it's those very social media platforms that allow us to express our collectively mixed feelings about the situation.
Outages are nothing new in the online world, and services often go offline or experience slowdowns. Facebook's outage on Monday, however, was unusual in that it struck a suite of the company's products, including its central site and WhatsApp, an encrypted messaging service used widely around the world. Facebook is deeply enmeshed in global infrastructure and the outage disrupted communications for the company's billions of users. The website and its services are used for everything from casual chatting to business transactions.
It isn't immediately clear what caused the issue for the three properties. Security expert Brian Krebs said it appears to be a DNS related-issue, adding that something "caused the company to revoke key digital records that tell computers and other Internet-enabled devices how to find these destinations online."
Cloudflare, a content delivery network that hosts customers data for fast access around the world, had its own explanation of what might have happened.
"Facebook and its sites had effectively disconnected themselves from the Internet," Cloudflare concluded. "It was as if someone had 'pulled the cables' from their data centers all at once and disconnected them from the internet.
Facebook's problem involved a combination of two fundamental internet technologies, BGP and DNS, both instrumental to helping computing devices to connect across the network. The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) helps establish the best way to send data hopping from one device to another until it reaches its final destination. The Domain Name System (DNS) translates human comprehensible network names like facebook.com into the numeric Internet Protocol (IP) addresses that actually are used to address and route data across the internet.
Just before 9 a.m. PT, Cloudflare detected a flurry of unusual updates from Facebook describing changes to how BGP should handle Facebook's part of the network. Specifically, the updates cut off network routes to Facebook's DNS servers. With those servers offline, typing "facebook.com" in a browser or using the app to try to reach Facebook failed.
In addition to Facebook's services and apps being down, some of the company's internal tools were also reportedly impacted by the outage. Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri said in a tweet that it felt like a "snow day."
The Facebook outage appears to have caused a headache for Twitter, as well, with more people heading there after finding Facebook down.
"Sometimes more people than usual use Twitter," Twitter tweeted Monday afternoon. "We prepare for these moments, but today things didn't go exactly as planned."
The outage cost Facebook an estimated $60 million in forgone revenue as of 1 p.m. PT/4 p.m. ET, according to Fortune and Snopes. The two publications calculated the lost revenue by using the roughly $29 billion the company reported in its second-quarter earnings. Facebook makes roughly $319.6 million per day in revenue, $13.3 million per hour, $220,000 per minute, and $3,700 per second. The outlets then used those numbers to calculate revenue loss based on how long the outage has lasted.
Shares in the social network dropped nearly 5% to $326.23 per share amid a broad selloff in social media stocks. (Shares of Twitter and Snap were both off more than 5%.)
The slide in Facebook stock weighed on CEO Mark Zuckerberg's net worth, which dropped to $121.6 billion. His net worth is now less than Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and is the fifth wealthiest person in the world, according to Bloomberg.
The outage creates another headache for Facebook, which is battling a massive public relations nightmare in the wake of a whistleblower's allegations that the social network is aware of harm that content on its services causes. The allegations were detailed in a series of stories published by The Wall Street Journal based on research leaked by the whistleblower that said the company ignored research about how Instagram can harm teen girls and that an algorithm change made users angrier.
The whistleblower, a former Facebook product engineer named Frances Haugen, is scheduled to testify to Congress on Tuesday. She detailed some of her allegations in a televised interview on Sunday.
"Facebook, over and over again, chose to optimize for its own interests, like making more money," she told 60 Minutes' Scott Pelley.
As is often the case with outages, users flocked to other social networks to complain and also revel in the Facebook outage. Instagram and Facebook quickly became the top trending topic on Twitter in the US, and dominated other locations around the world as well. Twitter even got in on the joke, with the company's official account tweeting, "Hello literally everyone," and CEO Jack Dorsey asking "how much?" in response to tweets suggesting Facebook's domain was for sale.
This isn't the first time Facebook has suffered from a lengthy outage. In 2019, Facebook's services suffered from a daylong outage that the company blamed on a "server configuration issue." In previous outages, the social network has also cited a DNS issue or a central software problem as causes.,
Read more: Funniest memes and jokes about Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram outage
CNET has contacted Facebook for additional comment and we'll update when we hear back.
CNET's Carrie Mihalcik and Stephen Shankland contributed to this report.
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Elon Musk asked in Twitter poll if he should sell Tesla stock to pay taxes. People said 'Yes'
Elon Musk asked in Twitter poll if he should sell Tesla stock to pay taxes. People said 'Yes'
Tesla CEO Elon Musk should sell 10% of his stock in the electric-car maker he founded in order to pay taxes, according to the results of a poll he posted to Twitter on Saturday. Nearly 58% of the more than 3.5 million people who took part in the poll voted for the stock sale by the time the poll closed on Sunday.
Musk said Saturday he would honor the results of the poll, which came amid continuing discussions of a "billionaire's tax." Amid the attention garnered by the online poll over the weekend, Musk changed this Twitter name to "Lorde Edge," which itself became a trending topic on the social network on Monday.
"Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock," Musk tweeted, "Do you support this?" Musk, one of the world's richest people, included a Yes or No poll in the tweet, saying, "I will abide by the results of this poll, whichever way it goes."
"Note, I do not take a cash salary or bonus from anywhere," Musk added. "I only have stock, thus the only way for me to pay taxes personally is to sell stock."
Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock.
Do you support this?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 6, 2021
Musk's remarks come as Democrats have been wrangling over a proposal to fund a large social-safety-net bill by taxing billionaires' unrealized capital gains, or the increase in value of unsold assets they hold, like stocks, bonds and real estate.
In June, investigative site ProPublica got hold of a cache of IRS documents and reported that Musk and other moguls, by structuring their pay to avoid income, built their wealth into the high billions while paying almost nothing in federal taxes. The activity wasn't against the law, ProPublica said, but the tax records reveal how the uber-wealthy minimize taxes, sometimes by taking out loans using their stock holdings as collateral. By comparison, wage earners live primarily off their paychecks, which are taxed as income.
Sen. Ron Wyden, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, commented on Musk's poll on Saturday, saying "whether or not the world's wealthiest man pays any taxes at all shouldn't depend on the results of a Twitter poll." He added that it's "time for the Billionaires Income Tax."
Musk responded in a tweet on Sunday with a vulgar comment about Wyden's profile picture.
It's unclear when or if Musk will sell the 10% of his Tesla stock. Shares in the electric car company fell roughly 5% in premarket trading on Monday.
Musk doesn't accept direct messages through his Twitter account. Tesla didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
CNET's Laura Hautala and Carrie Mihalcik contributed to this report.
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Spotify's Joe Rogan Problem: Turns Out His Deal Might Be Worth $200 Million
Spotify's Joe Rogan Problem: Turns Out His Deal Might Be Worth $200 Million
Joe Rogan and his podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, are at the center of growing concerns over COVID-19 misinformation and the host's use of racial slurs in dozens of episodes. This has put pressure on Spotify, the music streaming service that signed the comedian to an exclusivity deal in 2020.
In January, rock legend Neil Young pulled his music from Spotify over objections to false claims about COVID-19 vaccines on Rogan's popular podcast. Some other artists joined the boycott, but the backlash grew soon after when a compilation video of Rogan using a racial slur on numerous past episodes began circulating on social media.
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek confirmed that Rogan chose to remove multiple episodes of his popular podcast from the streaming service after the company's leadership discussed his use of "racially insensitive language," according to a memo sent to employees.
Spotify continues to grapple with a dilemma that many internet giants like Facebook and YouTube face: balancing freedom of expression and effective moderation of objectionable content on their platforms. It views Rogan as a key component to its growth as an audio platform, and the comedian has said being able to express himself is one of the reasons he moved his podcast to the streaming service. The company paid the comedian a reported $200 million, double the amount previously thought, according to a report from The New York Times Thursday.
Rogan posted an apology to Instagram on Feb. 5, saying he "wasn't trying to be racist" and agreeing that he shouldn't use such slurs, regardless of the context. Rogan said the backlash was a "political hit job" in an episode of his podcast posted on Feb. 8 but added that it was a "relief" to address comments he regrets making.
Here's what you need to know about the backlash against Joe Rogan and Spotify.
Why were episodes of Rogan's podcast removed?
Videos of Rogan using racial slurs on past episodes went viral on social media at the end of January. This was layered on top of a growing musician boycott over concerns that Rogan's podcast serves as a platform for COVID misinformation. The hashtags #DeleteSpotify and #CancelSpotify began trending on Twitter as some people called for the removal of Rogan's podcast. A consumer poll from Feb. 1 found 19% of Spotify subscribers said they canceled or will cancel their service, according to a report from Variety.
On Feb. 4, a fan-made website found that more than 100 episodes of Rogan's podcast were no longer available on Spotify. The website, JREMissing, uses Spotify's API to compare available episodes to a database of all episodes recorded. A total of 113 episodes of Rogan's podcast were shown to be removed: 42 happened last year when Rogan moved his show to Spotify. The other 71 were deleted on Feb. 4 without explanation at the time.
Ek sent a memo to Spotify employees about the development on Feb. 6. He confirmed that Rogan chose to remove multiple episodes of his podcast from the streaming service. This came after Spotify's leadership spoke to the comedian about his use of "racially insensitive language."
CNET couldn't confirm a link between the circulating videos and the episodes that were removed from Spotify.
"Some of Joe Rogan's comments [are] incredibly hurtful -- I want to make clear that they do not represent the values of this company," Ek wrote in the memo, which was provided to CNET by a company spokeswoman. "While I strongly condemn what Joe has said and I agree with his decision to remove past episodes from our platform, I realize some will want more. And I want to make one point very clear -- I do not believe that silencing Joe is the answer."
Ek went on to say the company would invest $100 million -- the earlier reported amount it paid to Rogan for exclusivity rights -- for the "licensing, development, and marketing of music (artists and songwriters) and audio content from historically marginalized groups. This will dramatically increase our efforts in these areas."
Spotify didn't respond to a request for comment on whether it will increase the investment to $200 million to match the newly reported amount of Rogan's deal.
What has Rogan said about this?
Rogan uploaded a video to his Instagram account on Feb. 5, the day after the podcast episodes were removed, in which he talked about his use of racial slurs and apologized for his actions.
"I certainly wasn't trying to be racist," he said, "and I certainly would never want to offend someone for entertainment with something as stupid as racism." Rogan agreed he shouldn't use such slurs, regardless of the context.
In episode #1773 of his podcast, Rogan had comedian Akaash Singh on and started the show talking about the blowup, saying it was a "relief."
"This is a political hit job," he said on his podcast. "They're taking all this stuff I've ever said that's wrong and smooshing it all together. It's good because it makes me address some s*** that I really wish wasn't out there."
How did this all get started?
In December, Rogan had two guests on his show who have been at the forefront of COVID misinformation. Dr. Peter McCullough, a cardiologist, and Dr. Robert Malone, who has described himself as the inventor of the mRNA vaccine, have used their credentials to try to give credibility to false conspiracy theories regarding the pandemic and vaccines.
COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective at reducing hospitalizations and deaths, and other public health measures like masking and social distancing have helped slow the spread of the virus. The dangers of the illness are clear. To date, there have been more than 419 million cases of COVID-19 around the world and more than 5.8 million deaths, according to the coronavirus resource center at Johns Hopkins University.
On Jan. 12, 250 doctors, professors and researchers signed an open letter to Spotify calling out the streaming service for platforming COVID misinformation, in particular on Rogan's podcast. Since then, more than 1,000 additional medical professionals have signed the letter.
After coming across the letter, singer-songwriter Young, who rose to fame in the 1960s and '70s, made an ultimatum to Spotify on Jan. 24: either Rogan goes or his music goes. He removed his music Jan. 27, but some songs featuring Young with other artists are still on the platform.
Other musicians joined Young in a boycott of the service, including:
The controversy escalated when Grammy-winning singer Arie joined the boycott, saying she found Rogan problematic, not just for his interviews around COVID, but also his language around race.
Is Spotify doing anything about COVID misinformation on its platform?
Following the musicians' protest over COVID misinformation, Ek responded in a blog post Jan. 30, saying his company doesn't want to be a "content censor" but will make sure that its rules are easy to find and that there are consequences for spreading misinformation. He acknowledged that Spotify hasn't been transparent about them, which led to questions about their application to serious issues including COVID-19.
"Based on the feedback over the last several weeks, it's become clear to me that we have an obligation to do more to provide balance and access to widely accepted information from the medical and scientific communities guiding us through this unprecedented time," Ek said.
Included in the post was a link to Spotify's platform rules detailing what content isn't allowed on the service. Regarding COVID misinformation, the rules specifically prohibit saying that COVID-19 isn't real, encouraging the consumption of bleach to cure diseases, saying vaccines lead to death and suggesting people get infected to build immunity.
Ek also said the company is working on a content advisory for any podcast episode that talks about COVID. The advisory will guide listeners to the service's COVID-19 hub.
In a Feb. 2 company town hall, Ek told Spotify employees that Rogan's podcast was key to the future of Spotify, according to audio obtained by The Verge.
"If we want even a shot at achieving our bold ambitions, it will mean having content on Spotify that many of us may not be proud to be associated with," Ek said during the town hall. "Not anything goes, but there will be opinions, ideas and beliefs that we disagree with strongly and even makes us angry or sad."
Spotify employees were reportedly disappointed by his remarks. Members of the company's board of directors were also reportedly not happy with the response according to The New York Times.
In an Instagram post Jan. 30, Rogan defended his choice to bring on guests like Malone but said he was happy for Spotify to add disclaimers to podcasts on what he called "controversial" topics. He added that if he could do anything differently, it would be to get experts with differing opinions on directly after "controversial ones."
Who else had something to say about this?
The White House chimed in on Spotify's move to add misinformation warnings to podcast episodes. In a Feb. 1 press briefing, press secretary Jen Psaki was asked if tech companies should go further than these disclaimers.
"Our hope Is that all major tech platforms, and all major news sources for that matter, be responsible and be vigilant to ensure the American people have access to accurate information on something as significant as COVID-19. That certainly includes Spotify," Psaki said. "So this disclaimer, it's a positive step, but we want every platform to continue doing more to call out misinformation and disinformation while also uplifting accurate information."
Psaki also referred to Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy's warning from July about the dangers of misinformation, calling it an "urgent threat."
The CEO of Rumble, a video streaming service known for being a hub of misinformation and conspiracy theories, said Feb. 7 that he'd offer Rogan $100 million over the course of four years if he brought his podcast to the company,
"This is our chance to save the world," Chris Pavlovski said in a letter to Rogan posted to Twitter. "And yes, this is totally legit."
During a question and answer portion of a recent comedy show, Rogan told a crowd he plans to stick with Spotify according to a Feb. 8 report from Hollywood Reporter.
Former President Donald Trump on Feb. 7 posted a message on his site saying Rogan shouldn't apologize for what he said. "How many ways can you say you're sorry," the former president wrote.
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Amazon uses Snapchat to send exclusive deals
Amazon uses Snapchat to send exclusive deals
Amazon uses Instagram to promote its new Snapchat account. Screenshot by Donna Tam/CNET
Snap up these deals before they're gone in 10 seconds. Literally.
Amazon, the world's largest online retailer by revenue, hopes to boost sales with a new take on social shopping -- using a Snapchat account to send gift ideas, recommendations and exclusive deals that disappear in seconds. The company will send out its first "snap" on Thursday.
The account -- announced Wednesday alongside a new Instagram feed for its site and an early kickoff for Black Friday deals -- is Amazon's latest effort to grab the attention of shoppers glued to social networks on their smartphones and tablets. The company in May created a hashtag for Twitter that would let people put products in their Amazon shopping cart just by responding to a tweet.
The new Instagram feed encourages users to buy items posted to Amazon's profile. A click on the product image sends the user straight to the product page.
All about mobile
Half of Amazon's customers shopped from a mobile device during last year's holiday season, according to John Yurcisin, Amazon's director of social.
The online retailer knows it has to keep up with consumers' constantly growing presence on social media, Yurcisin said. And that's where Instagram and Snapchat come in.
"Instagram and Snapchat are the two of the fastest growing mobile social networks where people are engaging and interacting with each other in entirely new ways," Yurcisin said.
Instagram attracts roughly 40 million unique users who access the site only from their mobile devices, according to a May report from ComScore. Snapchat, which is only accessible through a mobile app, has 21.7 million users.
Both have rapidly growing mobile audiences, according to the report, with Instagram increasing its mobile users by 45 percent since last year.
Amazon is trying to tap into that trend by reaching out to social media followers.
Despite their potential for boosting sales, it's still too early to predict which social media services will have the greatest impact on consumers' buying habits, said Forrester analyst Sucharita Mulpuru-Kodali.
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What is Signal? Everything you need to know about Elon Musk's app recommendation
What is Signal? Everything you need to know about Elon Musk's app recommendation
Tech mogul Elon Musk -- known as widely for slinging cars into the sun's orbit as he is for advocating against COVID-19 safety measures -- took to Twitter earlier this month to slam Facebook over its latest privacy policy updates for its supposedly secure encrypted messaging app WhatsApp. Musk instead recommended people choose encrypted messaging app Signal.
The tweet was then retweeted by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. Shortly after, Signal tweeted that it was working to handle the surge of new users.
The Signal app was downloaded almost 1.3 million times on Jan. 11, according to data from Apptopia, a tracking firm. The app had been downloaded an average of 50,000 times a day prior to Musk's tweet. A Signal spokesperson said the report undercounted the number of downloads the service is experiencing.
Signal also attributed a temporary outage later that week to the surge in new users.
"While we have been working hard all week to keep up with all the new people switching over to Signal, today exceeded even our most optimistic projections. We are working hard to resolve [the issue]," the spokesman told CNET in an email.
Musk's Twitter endorsement also incidentally led shares in the biotechnology company Signal Advance to soar, despite the fact that it is completely unrelated to Signal, which is not a publicly traded company.
This isn't the first time Musk has publicly sparred with Facebook over privacy concerns. In 2018, he not only had his own personal Facebook page removed, but those of his companies Tesla and SpaceX. His take on the long-fought battle between Signal and WhatsApp isn't off-base, though.
Both of the encrypted messaging apps have been found to have security bugs over the years that have been resolved. For years, WhatsApp has openly collected certain user data to share with parent company Facebook. Its latest policy change just expands that. Signal, on the other hand, has a history of fighting any entity that asks for your data, and adds features to further anonymize you where possible.
Read more: Signal vs. WhatsApp vs. Telegram: What to know before you switch messaging apps
Soon after Musk's tweet, WhatsApp published an FAQ aimed at clarifying its data collection policy, emphasizing that neither it nor Facebook can see users' private messages or hear their calls. Following mounting privacy concerns, WhatsApp announced Friday it would delay the rollout of its new policy by three months.
"We're now moving back the date on which people will be asked to review and accept the terms. No one will have their account suspended or deleted on February 8. We're also going to do a lot more to clear up the misinformation around how privacy and security works on WhatsApp. We'll then go to people gradually to review the policy at their own pace before new business options are available on May 15," the company said in a blog post.
Here are the basics of Signal you should know if you're interested in using the secure messaging app. Plus, here are all of the differences between Signal, WhatsApp and Telegram.
Signal is a typical one-tap install app that can be found in your normal marketplaces like Google'sPlay Store and Apple'sApp Store, and works just like the usual text messaging app. It's an open source development provided free of charge by the non-profit Signal Foundation, and has been famously used for years by high-profile privacy icons like Edward Snowden.
Signal's main function is that it can send text, video, audio and picture messages protected by end-to-end encryption, after verifying your phone number and letting you independently verify other Signal users' identity. You can also use it to make voice and video calls, either one-to-one or with a group. For a deeper dive into the potential pitfalls and limitations of encrypted messaging apps, CNET's Laura Hautala's explainer is a life-saver. But for our purposes, the key to Signal is encryption.
Despite the buzz around the term, end-to-end encryption is simple: Unlike normal SMS messaging apps, it garbles up your messages before sending them, and only ungarbles them for the verified recipient. This prevents law enforcement, your mobile carrier and other snooping entities from being able to read the contents of your messages even when they intercept them (which happens more often than you might think).
When it comes to privacy it's hard to beat Signal's offer. It doesn't store your user data. And beyond its encryption prowess, it gives you extended, onscreen privacy options, including app-specific locks, blank notification pop-ups, face-blurring anti-surveillance tools, and disappearing messages. Occasional bugs have proven that the tech is far from bulletproof, of course, but the overall arc of Signal's reputation and results have kept it at the top of every privacy-savvy person's list of identity protection tools.
For years, the core privacy challenge for Signal lay not in its technology but in its wider adoption. Sending an encrypted Signal message is great, but if your recipient isn't using Signal, then your privacy may be nil. Think of it like the herd immunity created by vaccines, but for your messaging privacy.
Now that Musk and Dorsey's endorsements have sent a surge of users to get a privacy booster shot, however, that challenge may be a thing of the past.
