Since the beginning of this year, a series of advertisements have appeared on television screens and billboards across the United States, with ominous warnings for SMS enthusiasts.
“I think I left the car unlocked, can you check?” reads a text message displayed on one of the billboards. The consequence, described next to the text balloon: “If your personal texts aren’t end-to-end encrypted, they aren’t private.”
In a TV commercial, a postman delivers already-opened letters and packages to outraged recipients, before telling them that “every text you send is as open-ended as your letters.”
These notices are courtesy of Whatsappthe mobile messaging service acquired by Facebook in 2014. While WhatsApp has since become a formidable force, used by more than a quarter of the world’s population, the platform’s reach in its US market remains comparatively small.
Data shared with CNN Business by research firm eMarketer indicate that WhatsApp had fewer than 63 million users in the United States last year, or about 19% of the country’s population.
This is far behind its audience in countries like India, Brazil and Indonesia, where it is among the most popular media outlets. India alone has nearly 500 million WhatsApp users according to eMarketer, which is over a third of its population and over half of its internet user base.
This is the first time that WhatsApp, which has declined to share statistics on how many users it currently has in the United States, has run an advertising campaign in the country.
“Over time, we’ve seen more people in the US turn to WhatsApp,” Eshan Ponnadurai, head of marketing for the platform that led the ad campaign, said in an emailed statement to CNN Business, while recognizing the difference with the rest of the world. “We’re just performing in the US in a way.”
The stakes may be high for Facebook, now known as Meta, to increase WhatsApp’s reach. Even making a full-scale pivot to virtual reality, Meta’s social media platforms still form the core of its business.
And that business is waning — Facebook user growth has slowed as it saturates the world and faces increasing competition from other platforms like TikTok, particularly for younger users.
Meta’s advertising business has also been hit by Apple’s privacy changes around tracking user activity.
While apps like Facebook and Instagram are already widely used in the United States and don’t have much room to grow, WhatsApp’s potential is much greater.
The messaging app cost Facebook $19 billion nearly a decade ago but generates little revenue. Meta is now trying to change that.
Boosting WhatsApp in the US could have positive effects on its other platforms and create new monetization opportunities in a lucrative market.
But to get there, WhatsApp must fight an uphill battle to change the way Americans text and, perhaps, how they view WhatsApp’s parent company.
The fight to change the way Americans send messages
With over 2 billion users worldwide, WhatsApp has become the dominant messaging service in many parts of the world, including much of Asia, Europe and Latin America.
That’s not the case in the United States, where more than half the country uses iPhones and its standard iMessage app.
For non-iPhone users, traditional text messaging, also known as SMS (or MMS for photo sharing), is still the option.
More than 2.2 trillion text messages were sent in the United States in 2020, according to CTIA, a trade group in the U.S. telecommunications industry.
“The only common denominator is SMS, a 30-year-old technology,” said Inderpal Singh Mumick, CEO of New Jersey-based communications company Dotgo, which helps businesses communicate with customers through various messaging applications. posts.
Google, whose Android operating system is Apple’s biggest smartphone rival, is replacing SMS with a system known as Rich Communication Services (RCS) for its standard messaging app.
Google describes RCS as a “modern, more secure industry standard” that gives users a safer, more interactive way to message each other.
But rollout has been slow and SMS remains popular. Mumick estimates that there are about 40 million RCS users in the United States, out of 500 million globally.
WhatsApp, which works the same regardless of the device it’s being used on, has apparently set out a strategy to convince Americans to make the switch — appealing to a desire for data privacy.
The privacy manual
WhatsApp has long touted its use of end-to-end encryption, which means that only the sender and recipient of a message can see its contents.
While several other competitors, including iMessage and Signal, also offer end-to-end encryption, WhatsApp is by far the largest in terms of user base.
Ponnadurai said WhatsApp saw the growing conversation about data privacy as “an opportunity to educate Americans who are missing out on secure conversations because they still use SMS.”
There is merit to the argument that SMS is not secure, according to some privacy experts.
“SMS is definitely insecure,” said Riana Pfefferkorn, a researcher at the Stanford Internet Observatory who focuses on encryption and privacy issues.
The telecommunications architecture that allows the transmission of text messages, known as the SS7 protocol, has vulnerabilities that “leave Americans’ calls and text messages unprotected from malicious eavesdroppers,” he added.
WhatsApp’s privacy push comes as lawmakers in the US and around the world are also floating around on legislation that would dilute encryption, citing the technology’s potential use by malicious actors. But critics of the legislation say it would have dangerous implications for online privacy.
“From an encryption policy perspective, now is an important time to mount a PR campaign touting the benefits of an encrypted chat app,” said Pfefferkorn.
“Americans recognize that they need and deserve privacy and security for their communications, but they may not know that end-to-end encryption is a great way to meet those needs or realize that WhatsApp is [criptografado] by default”.
But the biggest challenge WhatsApp faces in convincing Americans to change may come from its own parent company.
trust issues
In recent years, Facebook has faced scandal after scandal when it comes to protecting the privacy and security of its users.
A series of leaks from a Facebook whistleblower late last year may have only further tarnished trust in the company. Even guaranteed crypto can be hard to sell.
“The company’s many privacy issues created a general atmosphere of distrust,” Pfefferkorn said. “People just don’t believe that Facebook really respects their privacy, and many people don’t even believe that Facebook [e] WhatsApp really cannot read your WhatsApp messages.”
WhatsApp faced its own privacy backlash. The company was forced to delay an update to its privacy policy last year after confusion over how much user data it shares with Facebook sparked a mass exodus to rival messaging platforms like Signal.
If its US effort is successful, the opportunities for WhatsApp are significant.
The company launched commercial communications and digital payments in some of its biggest markets, trying to monetize what was traditionally a free service.
And the United States is considered one of the most profitable markets in the world in terms of revenue per user of online services.
But ingrained texting habits and your own parent company’s mistakes are likely to make this an uphill battle.
“Facebook has totally spoiled the public’s trust and so if the US PR strategy doesn’t work, Facebook will be at fault,” Pfefferkorn said.
Source: CNN Brasil
I am Sophia william, author of World Stock Market. I have a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri and I have worked as a reporter for several news websites. I have a passion for writing and informing people about the latest news and events happening in the world. I strive to be accurate and unbiased in my reporting, and I hope to provide readers with valuable information that they can use to make informed decisions.
