Highlights:
- Meta Chief Mark Zuckerberg has suddenly displayed his concerns about the users’ privacy in his latest Facebook and Instagram posts.
- Zuckerberg claims WhatsApp to be more secure than Apple’s iMessage, with its encryption adequately working on both iOS and Android platforms.
- Zuckerberg takes a dig at iMessage by praising WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption and disappearing messages, which the former lacks.
Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, is positioning his company’s messaging app WhatsApp as a competitor to Apple’s iMessage by placing a focus on users’ ability to maintain their privacy. Sharing his views after publishing a post on Facebook and Instagram on Monday, Mark Zuckerberg said WhatsApp is far more confidential and safer than iMessage.
Alongside Zuckerberg’s Instagram post is a billboard in New York City that promotes WhatsApp over SMS or iMessage. It presents a head-to-head contrast between the approaches used by iMessage’s Green and Blue bubbles and those taken by WhatsApp’s ‘Private’ bubble.
He then goes on to outline some of the capabilities that are exclusive to WhatsApp, such as end-to-end encryption and the features of disappearing messages, which are not available in iMessage.
He emphasized that WhatsApp erases new conversations with the push of a button if you use the app. In addition, WhatsApp started offering fully encrypted backups last year. All of these are features that iMessage does not yet have, according to the Instagram post that Zuckerberg posted.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg Claims WhatsApp ‘Far More Private and Secure’ Than Apple’s iMessage #AppleNews https://t.co/Yrdf551Lbo pic.twitter.com/XOkgo1f2La
— MacTrast (@MacTrast) October 17, 2022
According to a story from The Verge, the privacy advertising campaign represents a significant push for Meta. It is scheduled to air throughout the United States on broadcast television, digital video, outdoor advertising, and social media. In addition, billboards advertising the event will be placed in New York City, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
More than 2 billion users across the globe have installed WhatsApp. It is not the default chatting app in the United States. Meta’s goal is to increase the number of people using WhatsApp in the United States. In recent years, Meta has advertised WhatsApp with an emphasis on the user’s ability to maintain their privacy and security.
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Apple Inc. has, on more than one occasion, publicly voiced its disapproval of several social media networks, including Facebook.
Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, reportedly said in January of the previous year, “We can no longer turn a blind eye to a concept of technology that claims all interaction is good interaction in this day of widespread misinformation and conspiracy theories fuelled by algorithms. The longer the study is, the more information it will be able to gather, thus the longer it is, the better.”
Despite the fact that Cook did not specifically identify any company, this was interpreted as a dig at Facebook.
Apple has never shied away from touting the privacy and security benefits of its devices, especially in comparison to those of its competitors. The accusation that Zuckerberg has levelled against Apple regarding privacy is very fascinating.
However, Zuckerberg makes a reason that WhatsApp now offers end-to-end encryption for backups as well, which means that no third party can obtain the backups either. This eliminates the possibility of data theft.
However, iMessage does not currently provide this particular feature. All iMessage and FaceTime conversations are encrypted from beginning to finish, which means that no third party, not even Apple, can read or collect them.
