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a great African emigration? – Young Africa

While the mobile application is the target of a boycott call, following the update of its privacy policy, the mobile network is trying to reassure Africans by reaffirming the security of its services.


In Africa, WhatsApp is not just a multiplatform mobile application that provides an instant messaging system through telephone networks and the Internet. Since the mid-2010s, WhatsApp, owned by Facebook, has been a “religion”. True digital revolution on a continent with the rate of equipment in smartphones of the order of 50% of the population – according to the firm Deloitte -, this “app” is the most used.

With the “free” telecommunications that it allows, no need to time your call when you contact a cousin in the diaspora, nor to clandestinely squat your employer’s telephone line, hidden behind the desk at lunchtime . With, as a bonus, the video and the impression of being an acquaintance of the famous Juan Gomez of Radio France internationale (RFI), who can be contacted without firing a shot.

Telegram et Signal

In French-speaking Africa, mobile screens are now like those on television: almost always on. A recent controversy has therefore not failed to frighten “WhatsAppeurs”, most of whom have however understood neither the ins nor the outcomes …

During one of the updates to the application, which we generally validate without reading the terms, journalists denounced breaches of personal data security in the new WhatsApp privacy policy.

And some TV channel hosts encourage a Pavlovian reflex, by directly removing the app from their phone, which is supposed to be off on the air. Two of the application’s competitors were able to benefit from a free advertising campaign: Telegram, created by two Russian brothers, and the American Signal, designed to be as secure as possible.

WhatsApp executives tried to reassure their audiences through a press release. The new sharing of messaging service user data with Facebook would only relate to messages to a company. Protected by end-to-end encryption, personal, individual or group messages and calls, as well as shared geolocations, could not be viewed by WhatsApp or Facebook.

Paranoid startle?

A notable difference with traditional telephone communications whose operators keep historical records, as evidenced by the police TV series and their famous “fadettes” (“detailed invoices”) likely to confuse lying brigands.

The contacts used on WhatsApp would not be shared either with the sister applications offered by Facebook Inc. Since last November, the app even offers to delete the messages that are described as “temporary”.

Paranoid startle? If his scorned wife does not have access to all his frivolous communications, the lambda “telephone operator” does not have to worry about the secret services of a regime that he hardly threatens, however autocratic it may be. -he.

On the other hand, an application that promotes the fight against spam should not become a provider of data that can be exploited by intrusive advertisers. And vigilance – which is not synonymous with conspiracy – is a matter of principle, for who knows that it is difficult to take your finger off the cogs of “Big Brother” culture.

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