Move on to Signal now, says Paytm founder amid WhatsApp privacy row

Sharma along with Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey and others is urging users to protect their privacy by moving on to Signal app

Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma joined criticism of WhatsApp for allegedly endangering privacy with new changes to its policy, saying users must leave the Facebook-owned app and move to Signal.

Sharma, in a detailed tweet, accused Facebook and WhatsApp of abusing their monopoly as a messaging platform and taking away users' data for granted. He said that India is the largest market for WhatsApp and it has the power to reject such abuse of power.  

"They say, market has power. We are the largest market.  Here in India WhatsApp / Facebook are abusing their monopoly &  taking away millions of users' privacy for granted. We should move on to @signalapp NOW. It is upto us to become victim or reject such moves."

Tesla owner and founder Elon Musk was among the first users to urge people to move on to Signal. His tweet was retweeted by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey and Edward Snowden as well.

Telegram founder Pavel Durov, in a blog post, accused Facebook of not respecting its users. He further accused WhatsApp of “covert marketing" and said there are bots spreading false information about Telegram on social media.