Austria
June 16, 2021 • 11:41 am
/ 5 minutes reading time
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Denounced as data octopuses, messengers are now trying to turn around.
In agent films, the phrase “This message destroys itself!” Is almost part of the standard repertoire today. But this function is no longer reserved for “Mission Impossible” spies. In the fight for the favor of users, who are increasingly concerned with digital privacy, more and more messenger services are now relying on disappearing messages.
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The app made the start in 2011 Snapchat. The application was developed to send photos that dissolve after a few seconds. A concept that especially excited young people and the founder Evan Spiegel made one of the youngest billionaires in the world.
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Also discovered in late 2020 WhatsApp this function for itself. Since then, it has been possible to set in the chats that messages, pictures and videos are deleted from the conversation after seven days. Now the company is expanding this function. If desired, users can send messages that can only be viewed once by the recipient.
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WhatsApp is fighting for reputation
An attempt to convince startled users that sensitive data is the more than two billion users are treated as confidentially as possible at the Facebook subsidiary. The service has struggled with criticism and churn in the past few months after the announcement of new usage rules. The trigger was the assessment that with the update, which came into force in mid-May, more data should be shared with the parent company Facebook. WhatsApp dismissed this as a misunderstanding and repeatedly stressed that the End-to-end encryption, with which the service itself does not have access to the content of news, will not be weakened.
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The big beneficiaries of the last few months were the competing programs Signal and Telegramwho relied on particularly “secure” communication at an early stage. Signal, in particular, is a service that, in addition to encryption, promoted the option of sending self-erasing messages at an early stage. Signal calls the functionality “disappearing messages”; users can determine the lifespan of what is sent. It ranges from five seconds to a week.
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Telegram in the sights of German politics
Telegram has long been advertising users primarily with security and privacy. In principle, the chats are encrypted and stored on Telegram servers. However, end-to-end encryption such as Signal or WhatsApp must first be activated by the user. A fact that is criticized by data protectionists.
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This does not detract from the success of the program, which also offers the possibility of self-destructive messages. According to its own information, the app with Russian roots is currently running out 500 million userswho use the program at least once a month.
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But there is another key difference to Signal and WhatsApp: In addition to private chats, there are also public channelswhose content anyone can read. These messages are of course not encrypted. Nevertheless, this function in particular is now used by many people – including people with radical ideas, which is now causing headwinds, at least in Germany. The German Ministry of Justice is taking action against Telegram because the service is doing too little against content that is criminally relevant. In the future, all messenger services are to be regulated more strictly.
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