Police, for example, would be unable to get access to Signal messages, whether those communiques included political activism or revenge porn. Intercepted messages would look like a string of garbled text and symbols. That means users can send texts or make phone or video calls without outsiders - or the platform itself - seeing the content of those messages. Signal is an end-to-end encrypted communications app, available for mobile and desktop. The mobile data and analytics provider said demand for privacy-focused messaging apps has grown in the last few years, as internet privacy becomes a more mainstream issue and as people spend more time - 67 percent more time on average in the first half of 2020 - in messaging apps than on social media apps. “Due to the nature of social apps and how the primary functionality involves communicating with others, their growth can often move quite quickly, based on current events,” Amir Ghodrati, director of market insights at App Annie, told Recode.

Downloads also grew during Black Lives Matter protests against police violence last spring, as activists strove to organize while staying safe from law enforcement. Signal downloads spiked after the election of Donald Trump, who rolled back a number of privacy protections.

Previously, the number of new Signal users has rocketed up following social or political unrest. Because of the encrypted nature of the app, it’s hard to know (more on that below). It’s unclear how much the shift to these apps is being buoyed by people from the fringe right in need of new places to communicate. Signal, typically praised by privacy proponents and left-wing activists, is topping the app stores along with other privacy-focused social media alternatives like MeWe. Parler, the right wing’s social media alternative, was also booted from the internet Google and Apple banned it from its app stores and Amazon Web Services stopped hosting the app on its servers. Signal’s growth in popularity also came as numerous tech companies, including Facebook and Twitter, began deplatforming Trump and his followers and trying to prevent their technologies from being used in service of further violence. 1).īut as influential as Musk is, he isn’t tweeting in a vacuum. Still, many users - goaded in part by Musk’s tweet - flocked to other encrypted messaging apps like Telegram (now No. Facebook has clarified that WhatsApp messages will remain encrypted and personal information like contacts would not be shared with Facebook. This is called the domino effect /qpbEW54RvM- Elon Musk January 7, 2021Ī few days earlier, on January 4, Facebook-owned WhatsApp had issued a new privacy policy, which many interpreted would mean users would be required to share personal information with Facebook’s ad network in order to use the platform. The meme illustrates the “domino effect” from Facebook’s beginnings as “a website to rate women on campus” to the Capitol being “under the control of a man in a viking hat.” Musk’s tweet came a day after he had tweeted a meme blaming Facebook for its role in the violent storming of the Capitol, in which Trump supporters, amped up on conspiracy theories about a stolen election, failed to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s election victory. Still, Friday’s usage surge came “out of nowhere.” Harada said the company hoped to have service restored in the “near future.” “We have been scaling all week to meet the increasing capacity,” Signal spokesperson Jun Harada said in an email to Recode. The sudden growth caused widespread outages on January 15, as the company struggles to add extra server capacity for the record number of new users. Signal, for the first time, became the most downloaded app on the App Store and Google Play following Musk’s tweet, a position it has maintained for a week.

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