It’s mid-February, which means a brand new privacy policy should have governed Facebook’s WhatsApp instant messaging app by now. All WhatsApp users received prompts to agree to the changes in early 2021, with WhatsApp informing users the changes would go into effect on February 8th. Facebook never gave users the option to opt out of data sharing, and the only way to continue using WhatsApp once was to agree to the data sharing. What followed was an unexpected backlash at Facebook, with millions of users downloading competing apps. Signal and Telegram saw record numbers of new users in the weeks that followed, forcing Facebook to delay the WhatsApp privacy policy change to May 15th.
