Youth shun WhatsApp in droves

Nellore: With the recent update in WhatsApp privacy policy mandating the users to accord their consent for sharing their information with the messaging app's parent company Facebook, most of the youth are switching over to other apps like Telegram, Signal, Tox, Element, Viber. In fact, it is a tough decision for many since WhatsApp, used by 50 crore people in India, as become a part and parcel of people's daily lives.

Facebook purchased WhatsApp in February 2014, which is completely free to use. WhatsApp developers had initially released the phone number-based messaging app for simple communication; however, it took to the internet like a storm with more than 40 features, developers say. The messaging app topped over other mobile apps including Tumblr, Foursquare, Vine, and Google+, while encroaching upon Pinterest in the US after entering the market.

After six years of its journey, now, the messaging app is facing severe criticism with its revised privacy policy, which caused concern and consternation among users. But people familiar with the social media sphere are assuring that the new policy will have not much impact on the individual users.

"Mainly people having business accounts may face a problem with the recent privacy policy of the WhatsApp. Users are much very much worried about the policy and the risks of sharing information with the broader Facebook network, which includes Instagram. For longtime users, the option to share data with Facebook was made available in 2016, but it is now made mandatory for everybody," said a techie P B Krishna from Bengaluru.

Due to the simple privacy policy of WhatsApp, now android users are getting details of contacts who switched over to other apps asking them to be in touch on those apps indicating they are no longer available on WhatsApp.

A Whatsapp user P Ravindra from Nellore said many youth are now preferring other apps even though they don't know how they are going to be affected by the new privacy policy. He says it has become a mania leaving the app though they aren't sure about going to be impacted directly or not.