“There are no changes to our data sharing with Facebook anywhere in the world,” Niamh Sweeney, WhatsApp’s director of public policy for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, told the home affairs committee earlier this year. WhatsApp was forced to delay the update, and roll out a publicity campaign explaining that the new agreement was simply focused on a new set of features letting users message businesses on the app. Viral messages spread on the chat app itself, with some wrongly claiming that the new agreement would give WhatsApp the right to read users’ messages and hand the information over to Facebook. Millions of users downloaded alternative apps such as Signal and Telegram after WhatsApp announced that the new terms would come into effect on 8 February. It comes after a backlash from WhatsApp users in January, when the company first tried to update its terms of service.
That softer approach is unusual for Facebook, which historically has enforced new terms of service by putting an unskippable consent screen up on day one. At that point, users will have to choose: either they accept the new terms, or they are in effect prevented from using WhatsApp at all. “After a few weeks of limited functionality, you won’t be able to receive incoming calls or notifications and WhatsApp will stop sending messages and calls to your phone,” the company said.
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