Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma on Monday urged the people to leave Whatsapp and use new messaging app Signal. Sharma posted a tweet slamming WhatsApp and Facebook and accused both of them of abusing monopoly. Sharma also claimed that both Facebook and Whatsapp are taking the privacy of their users for granted.
"They say, market has power. We are the largest market. Here in India WhatsApp / Facebook are abusing their monopoly & taking away millions of users' privacy for granted," Sharma tweeted.
The Paytm founder added: "We should move on to @signalapp NOW. It is upto us to become victim or reject such moves."
It is to be noted that a few days ago Tesla CEO and world's richest man Elon Musk had urged his Twitter followers to "use Signal". Twitter's CEO Jack Dorsey has also backed Signal over Whatsapp.
Whistleblower Edward Snowden has also claimed that he is using Signal for his daily conversations and it is completely safe.
The call by Paytm CEO comes at a time when WhatsApp is facing strong controversy from several quarters over privacy issues. Notably, WhatsApp recently started sending in-app notifications to users about an update in its Terms of Service and privacy policy. The notification deals with how Whatsapp processes user data and joins hands with its parent company Facebook to offer integrations across the products of Facebook.
The new policy update of Whatsapp has sparked concerns among netizens with many taking to social media to claim that they would prefer switching to a different messaging app. While Facebook has always faced questions over misuse of user data, the new Whatsapp privacy policies throw at a ton of questions over its security and data privacy.
