On February 19th, 2014 Facebook announced the acquisition of WhatsApp, which resulted in heated debates regarding privacy of over 500 million WhatsApp users (Statista). However, this is only the most glaring example, confirming the trend: applications for instant messaging are gaining immense popularity not only among users, but also among investors. Although the acquisition of WhatsApp can be seen as a successful purchase of millions of new users, it clearly shows the problems of Facebook in gaining a new audience. Facebook is continually losing popularity among the younger generation that feels uncomfortable seeing too many adults using Facebook and monitoring their activities. Unlike Facebook, WhatsApp allows people narrow down their circles of communication to a limited number of people. Moreover, WhatsApp does not let other people collect your personal information simply by visiting your home page. At this point, we can distinguish between two different types of privacy threats – internal and external. Before the acquisition of WhatsApp Facebook posed both internal and external threats to its users. On the one side security threat came from the users themselves who post information on Facebook that can be accessed by any third party and used to its advantage. On the other side, no one can be sure that Facebook itself does not monitor all your private conversations with the other users. By 2011, 68% of American Facebook users did not understand the Facebook’s privacy settings, which means that they blindly provided their personal information without having any assurance in its security. Approximately 70% of users do not trust companies like Facebook although they keep using it (Bullas). The emergence of WhatsApp and is rapid growth in audience only confirms my suggestion: people wanted to secure their privacy rights and make their personal life and conversations more private. WhatsApp provided a great alternative to Facebook in terms of information security: all conversations are held with a limited number of people who do not have much access to you personal information (lowers external security risks), whereas WhatsApp was nothing like big online companies in terms of organization and commercial objectives (lowers internal security risks). WhatsApp had only 55 employees prior to acquisition (Tamny), which means that it was technically impossible to monitor over 27 billion messages and 400 million photos daily (Tamim). A simple interface, a limited number of functions, and no advertising quickly made WhatsApp a threat to Facebook that was losing its active users. By acquiescing WhatsApp Facebook increased the privacy insecurity for its users, although Facebook claims that WhatsApp continues to be an autonomous service. Currently, the WhatsApp users cannot observe any drastic changes in using the application: there are no commercials, no additional registrations, etc., however, the internal security risks become more obvious. Facebook received control over the WhatsApp service, which means that a big company has access to all people’s conversations as well as effective means to use them to their advantage. The amount paid for WhatsApp and the fact that WhatsApp is not a profitable enterprise are clear evidences that Facebook desperately needed this service to remain a leader in social network sphere in terms of ability to access people’s private affairs. The surveillance programme Prism, uncovered by Edward Snowden, established direct connection between NSA and Facebook, which put all its users in privacy security danger (BBC News). Now when WhatsApp servers belong to Facebook there is a little doubt that private conversations between people using this service are in danger as well.
Despite the fact that many people are aware of surveillance system’s presence and potential risks of using Facebook and WhatsApp, they keep using these services on a daily basis. Of course, there are some people who switch to other applications like Snapchat in order to secure their personal data, however, Facebook and WhatsApp still hold the largest online audience. For example, Snapchat that offers security of data to its users has almost 26 million of users, whereas WhatsApp could boast almost 20 times larger number of users (Colao). The main reason of why people still use Facebook and WhatsApp is that privacy is not the most important issue for the users. Only 28% of the active social media users are concerned with their privacy nowadays, whereas 58% of users find it less important (Bullas). This statistics shows a sort of apathy toward privacy security due to a simple reason that most people cannot and do not know how to protect them. 71% of the social media users believe that cannot protect their information online (Bullas). These figures show that although some users are still concerned with their privacy, the majority of users simply gave up the idea to protect their personal data. Any drastic changes in such perception would not be possible without teaching people how to secure their personal data properly. The case of Snapchat may only be the start of a bigger war for people’s privacy.
CONCLUSION
The acquisition of WhatsApp was an important switch towards people privacy insecurity. The revelations of Edward Snowden put information security of social network users under a big question. On the other side, the online messengers were not yet discredited like big online companies. The purchase of WhatsApp was the first step towards expansion of big companies’ influence on people’s private life. Nevertheless, people, feeling unable to change the overall situation, continue using Facebook and WhatsApp as the more well-known social network services. Any alternatives like Snapchat have not found a wide recognition yet, although have excellent prospects in the era of information security.
Works Cited
BBC News. "Edward Snowden: Leaks that exposed US spy programme." BBC News. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 June 2014. <http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-23123964>.
Bullas, Jeff. "Is Social Media a Serious Threat to Your Privacy? - Infographic." Jeffbullas's Blog. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 June 2014. <http://www.jeffbullas.com/2012/02/23/is-social-media-a-serious-threat-to-your-privacy-infographic/>.
Colao, J. "Pew Study Suggests That Snapchat Has 26 Million U.S. Users." Forbes. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 June 2014. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/jjcolao/2013/10/28/pew-study-suggests-snapchat-has-26-million-u-s-users/>.
Statista. "WhatsApp: number of monthly active users 2013-2014 | Statistic." Statista. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 June 2014. <http://www.statista.com/statistics/260819/number-of-monthly-active-whatsapp-users/>.
Tamim. "Is Facebook's acquisition of WhatsApp a threat to user privacy?" Qatar Chronicle | Qatar happenings | Qatar News | Qatar Classifieds | Qatar investments | Qatar business. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 June 2014. <http://www.qatarchronicle.com/science-and-technolgy/49273/is-facebooks-acquisition-of-whatsapp-a-threat-to-user-privacy/>.
Tamny, John. "Facebook's $19 Billion Acquisition Of WhatsApp Mocks The Budget-Deficit Worrywarts." Forbes. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 June 2014. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/johntamny/2014/02/26/facebooks-19-billion-acquisition-of-whatsapp-mocks-the-budget-deficit-worrywarts/>.
