Earlier in January, 2021, WhatsApp had sent in a notification to all its users where it stated that they are changing their policies. The notification was sent to make people aware about it.
The new policy included statements which made people think that it was a breach in their privacy. One of the statement from this new policy said that WhatsApp will now be sharing its user data with its main company- Facebook. It also stated that WhatsApp will now be able to access the data of the users. A lot of users opposed this claiming that this is an attack on their privacy. This is why a lot of people were seen moving from WhatsApp to other messaging apps like Telegram and Signal.
WhatsApp was originally supposed to roll out this new policy on 8th of February itself. However, it was unable to do so as it received so much backlash from its rebellious users. WhatsApp then had to postpone the date of rolling out its new policy to May 15, 2021. WhatsApp also made a public announcement that because WhatsApp is end to end encrypted, it cannot read or see any of your data. While announcing the launch date of the new policy, WhatsApp also made a statement that the users who refuse to accept the terms and condition of the new policy might have their accounts suspended. Users who do not accept the terms and conditions will have their account deactivated temporarily and to reactivate the account, the user will have to accept the new terms and policies of WhatsApp.
This statement by WhatsApp made people insecure and doubt their reliability on the application that they have been using and trusting with all their personal data and conversations for so long. Because of this, many of WhatsApp’s users were seen moving on to another messaging platform, mostly Telegram and Signal.
WhatsApp was seen losing a lot of their users to other applications until recently when they came up with a new statement update. In the new update, WhatsApp made it clear that it will not be deactivating any accounts of any users whatsoever, whether they accept the new policy or not. Many of its users have already agreed to the new terms and conditions of the policy. WhatsApp will be sending out reminders to those who have not accepted the terms and conditions yet.
WhatsApp also stated that the users will not lose access to their accounts if they deny to agree to the new terms and conditions. However, they will definitely experience the loss of some important features of the application like not being able to get access to your chat list, and in the long run, stop getting message notifications.
