For about half a year there has been massive resistance to WhatsApp. Main point of criticism: data protection. But the measure most die-hard critics take is almost like a bad joke.
Since WhatsApp updated its privacy policy at the beginning of the year, the messenger has been criticized . The US company was accused of wanting to exchange WhatsApp user data with the parent company Facebook. A wave of indignation followed and many users switched to alternative instant messaging services . A recently published survey by the market research institute Omniquest, which was commissioned by the VPN provider ExpressVPN , has now found out which service has benefited most from the migration: Facebook Messenger.
THIS IS WHAT GERMAN USERS THINK OF WHATSAPP DATA PROTECTION
According to the survey, around 25 percent of respondents said they now use Facebook Messenger more often. Meanwhile, “only” 18 percent switched to Telegram, while 13 percent switched to Signal and 11 percent to iMessage.
Although many have switched to Messenger, 58 percent of those surveyed are currently convinced that WhatsApp is the most trustworthy when it comes to data protection – followed by Facebook Messenger (37 percent), Telegram (34 percent) and Signal (30 percent).
However, those who want to switch often do not. The main reason given for this behavior, true to the “winner-takes-all” principle, is the fact that the majority of friends and family members use WhatsApp (74 percent). Meanwhile, 26 percent said that they didn’t care about WhatsApp criticism. And another 14 percent simply didn’t notice the data protection discussion. Last but not least, 21 percent of those surveyed said that switching platforms was simply too cumbersome for them.
The representative survey was carried out between March 23 and 29, 2021. Number of participants: 1,000 people.
