Meta has launched a new promotional campaign for WhatsApp, which focuses on the privacy elements of the app, in protecting your personal conversations.
As you can see, the message of the campaign is pretty straightforward: Your WhatsApp messages are private, and nobody else can access that information. Not even WhatsApp.
Meta’s hoping to build on the momentum of WhatsApp in the U.S. in particular, where it surged to 100 million users last year. Amid broader discussion around data safety, and various DM breaches or slip-ups, privacy has once again become a key focus of attention, and WhatsApp’s looking to reiterate its dedication to privacy as a core service.
Even if it is owned by Meta.
Last year, Elon Musk told his 250 million X followers that they shouldn’t trust WhatsApp, because parent company Meta, Musk claimed, exports data from the messaging platform for targeted advertising. WhatsApp quickly corrected this, noting that WhatsApp messages are end-to-end encrypted, and cannot be accessed by the company at all. But as with many of Musk’s unfounded claims, once a suggestion like that has been amplified, it’s hard to roll back, with Musk advising people to use Signal instead.
Though Musk then also suggested that Signal has its own “known vulnerabilities,” while Signal has also been criticized by Telegram CEO Pavel Durov as not being a secure channel.
Telegram, meanwhile, has pledged to cooperate with authorities on future information requests, after Durov himself was briefly arrested last year for refusing to comply with an information order.
So information security has been a lingering concern for every messaging app, but WhatsApp, for its part, has remained steadfast in its commitment to encryption, even in the face of significant regulatory pressure, particularly in the U.K.
Which, essentially, this campaign reiterates, with WhatsApp looking to underline the fact that, despite ongoing requests for special access, what you share on WhatsApp remains private, despite these various industry concerns.
And it seems pretty effective pretty clear. It should help to reinforce that messaging.
The campaign will run in the U.S., U.K., Brazil, Mexico, and India on TV, online video, digital, digital out-of-home and audio.
