Why the Uproar on WhatsApp is Misinformed, Short-lived!

This year started with a whirlwind of news and misinformation from the digital world, providing a break, albeit fleetingly from the COVID-19 pandemic. The big news was about WhatsApp introducing technical updates to affects its more than two billion users worldwide. 

Immediately this announcement was made, many other platforms weighed in with their versions of the announcement perhaps looking to capitalize on the move to earn more followers. Indeed, in the week following the January 4, 2021 announcement, both Signal and Telegram gained some of the highest numbers of users in a single week.

Signal, for one got endorsements from influencers like Tesla’s Elon Musk through a single two-worded tweet that earned it about 4,200% growth in just one week to about 7.5 million users. Telegram on the other hand moved 91% compared to the week leading to the WhatsApp announcement gaining more than nine million new users.

However, only time will tell how the competitors of Facebook will gain from this high numbers given the fact that platforms like Telegram have failed to appeal to users since they were introduced. Many who have joined Telegram have always slid back to WhatsApp.

One thing is for sure however, that Facebook has been consistent and continues to be seen by users around the world as not only a caring organization, but one that listens to the views and wishes of its users. Beyond business, Facebook has come out lately to fight fake news especially at the height of COVID-19 and also during the highly contested 2020 USA elections. It is some of these policies that the company has earned the trust of billions around the world and is today quickly becoming an undisputed global voice for the voiceless.

That aside, it is now emerging that much of the debate and arguments against the new updates being introduced by WhatsApp were misinformed and even misleading and were only coined as an attempt of incumbering the growth of the Mark Zuckerberg’s empire, which has been on the rise since the parent company, Facebook was launched in 2004.

The central argument by the proponents of these latest updates is that WhatsApp was planning to share private data with other social media platforms thereby infringing on the rights of the billions of users around the world.

Even more than Facebook and WhatsApp, those against the updates launched spirited campaigns warning users not to accept the new updates and even going ahead to suggest that their WhatsApp accounts were going to be deleted by February 8, 2021.

Whereas this opposition might have succeeded to some extent deceive users, it seems to have been stopped in its track as WhatsApp moved to clarify the new updates and intentions behind it.

Turns out, of the two billion plus users of WhatsApp, only less than 175 million users would be affected by the new updates. According to a statement by WhatsApp, only those who actively use WhatsApp to conduct businesses would be affected and even then, their privacy would still be protected through the end-to-end encryption. The word on the streets however that the new updates were going to affect all WhatsApp users around the world.

This is false according to the statement from WhatsApp. Take for instance one who only uses WhatsApp to share videos with friends and family, read the many forwarded messages, chat in groups or make audio calls, this user will experience absolutely no change in the way he or she uses the platform.

In a world that is quickly moving from brick-and-mortar offices and shop counters to the digital supermarkets, outlets, and even banks, there is a growing need for traditional businesses to follow the customers to where they are. This is a wave that cannot be stopped.

When all is said and done, Facebook will have to make money from WhatsApp, a company that it bought at a whooping $22 billion leaving many wondering why it would spend that much money on a ‘free’ platform. Like all the other digital platforms, the only way WhatsApp can make money is through advertisements and the leadership of Facebook seems to be keen on how to monetise this new acquisition.

Like he has proven over time, Mark Zuckerberg and his team at the 1 Hacker Way, Headquarters in Menlo Park, California, has seen the future long before many others and only time will prove how right this team was. Long before the news of the WhatsApp updates hit the digital space, Mr. Zuckerberg went all out to outline Facebook’s vision on privacy-focused digital platform, promising to ensure that users were able to share messages, videos, audios and just about anything online without their privacy being infringed on.

“People’s private communications should be secure. End-to-end encryption prevents anyone - including us - from seeing what people share on our services,” said Mr. Zuckerberg in March 2019. He went on to state that, “People should have simple, intimate places where they have clear control over who can communicate with them and confidence that no one else can access what they share.”

A recent statement from WhatsApp further reiterated this message giving much-needed reassurance and clearing the air on the new updates. The statement read in part, “We want to be clear that the policy update does not affect the privacy of your messages with friends or family in any way. The changes are related to optional business features on WhatsApp and provides further transparency about how we collect and use data.”

In my opinion, Facebook is only being right with the time. Business is moving online and with it, traditional adverting platforms like newspaper, TV and Radio Advertisements will also have to conform to the new norm. This trend is already happening with many advertising agencies now opting to sell digital media spaces as opposed to the traditional Ads.

When Facebook poached digital advertising guru, Sheryl Kara Sandberg in March 2008 from google and appointed her to the key role of Chief Operating Officer, many saw it as a diversity move with the talk mainly centered around her being the first woman to hold the position in the giant tech company and went on to be the first female board member in 2012. Few saw it for what it was, a business move, in tune with the future of the company.

This was not the first talent Facebook was tapping to grow its revenue-generation arm of the business. Earlier, it hired Gokul Rajaram, who is famed as the Godfather of AdSense, as Product Director of Advertising but left in mid-2013 to join Square, Inc. as Product Engineering Lead. This was viewed as a big loss to Facebook, but Ms. Sandberg seemed to have come in handy to fill the void left - if any.

At the very least, the WhatsApp updates will help improve how people do business online and make it easy for customers to connect to businesses online. What the tech giant has done was to identify an emerging problem and went right ahead to provide a solution.

But if the uproar is anything to go by however, there was need for Facebook and WhatsApp to do some stakeholder engagement and user awareness ahead of the announcement which would help users easily buy in the new terms as part of user-environment improvement.

That notwithstanding, it is very unlikely that the competitors like Signal and Telegram will translate the new numbers to a loyal base. Chances are that after the users realise that their exodus was all based on misinformation, many will return to the good old WhatsApp, which is safer, loved by many, and easy to use. This is as true for Africa as it will be with the rest of the world.

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