What’s up with your data on WhatsApp? Explaining the app’s new privacy terms
Experts have described the changes as cosmetic, but that did not stop a pushback by users, many who sought options.
Published on 20 January 2021
Consumer data aggregator Statistica estimates that WhatsApp is the most popular mobile app in South Africa, and the most used mobile messenger app worldwide with an estimated 2 billion monthly active users in 2020.
Globally, in one internet minute, some 41.7 million messages are shared by the app’s users, according to Statistica.
So when WhatsApp in January 2021 required users to accept the terms of an updated privacy policy or lose access, users were worried how much of their personal data the app and its parent company Facebook would now access.
DJ Fresh and Euphonik off air as cops probe rape allegations
By Norman Cloete
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Johannesburg - Popular DJs Euphonik (Themba Mbongeni Nkosi) and Fresh (Thato Sikwane) are playing a different beat as they face a rape charge. Gauteng police on Friday confirmed that a formal rape case was opened against the two music giants.
Sikwane (DJ Fresh) reacted to his newest accuser, saying: “Each time someone succumbs to the temptation of using GBV to further personal agendas, the cause to eradicate this scourge takes a step backwards.”
Nkosi has not responded to the allegation.
Meanwhile their employer Primedia has announced that the pair will
Social media in South Africa has been awash with panic, conspiracy theories and mass account deletions ever since it became known that on 8 February 2021 WhatsApp users would have to agree to a new set of terms and conditions in order to be able to continue using the platform.
Should it be taken seriously? Is the 8 February date applicable only to European Union users? And if so, knowing how pedantic the EU is about data privacy, shouldn’t South Africans be only too delighted about it all?
Frankly, the only thing to be taken seriously is what
information users have allowed social media platforms to have.