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Social media giant Facebook purchased the popular texting app WhatsApp in 2014, and in 2016 WhatsApp announced they would be sharing user information with Facebook — leading some users to worry that personal information contained with WhatsApp would be spilled to the social media-using public. But while the app will share some user data with Facebook to improve targeted advertising and other business interfaces, WhatsApp says information such as messages, pictures and other personal data will not be shared onto other platforms. Furthermore, users can theoretically opt out of sharing non-personal data with Facebook. The WhatsApp web site rather passive-aggressively instructs users how to opt out: The site offers instructions on two methods for opting out of data sharing. One way to prevent WhatsApp from sharing customer information with Facebook is to tap the word Read when the update is offered, then uncheck the following box: If you have agreed to the update, you have another 30 days to change your account settings so that your information is not shared by again unchecking the box: WhatsApp promises that none of their users' messages, photos, and account information will be shared on Facebook or any of our other family of apps for others to see, nor will anything posted on Facebook be shared on WhatsApp: The ten Facebook-owned companies that will share the information include Facebook Payments; Atlas; Instagram; Occulus; Onavo; Parse; Moves; LiveRail; Masquerade; and now, of course, WhatsApp. According to a WhatsApp blog post dated 25 August 2016: If WhatsApp's promises that your personal information will not be shared on Facebook aren't enough, Forbeslists the messaging app Signal to be a favorite alternative choice. Its developer, Open Whisper Systems, boasts an endorsement by none other than NSA document leaker Edward Snowden:
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