Millions of WhatsApp users join Telegram as Facebook forces them to give up their data

Facebook informed WhatsApp users last week that in order to continue to use the app, they will have to agree with the company’s updated privacy policy. That wouldn’t be unusual unless the new policy requires WhatsApp users to allow the company to share their information with Facebook and its associated firms.

About three years ago, WhatsApp introduced this option with the promise that it will “help operate, provide, improve, understand, customize, support and market it services and offerings,” but users could opt-out from this trial.

Unfortunately, this has become mandatory this year, so those who don’t comply won’t be able to use WhatsApp starting February 8. Well, it looks like Facebook’s decision had drastic repercussions for its customer database.

Telegram, a similar messenger service with a lot less users, has just announced a surge in the number of active users immediately after Facebook’s announcement. First, the founder of the company, Pavel Durov, pointed out that Telegram surpassed 500 million monthly in the first week of January 2021.

More importantly, soon after WhatsApp announced the new changes, Telegram reported a massive surge in a number of users. No less than 25 million users joined Telegram in the last 72 hours. According to him, most of them are coming from Asia (38%), Europe (27%), and Latin America (21%).

Apparently, this is an important increase compared to last year, when “just” 1.5 million users signed up every day. Durov went on to say that while Telegram had surges of downloads before, “this time is different.”