Digital messenger app Signal on Tuesday fired some shots when it made some really cheeky advertisements calling out Facebook for collecting its users' data.
In a blog post titled "The Instagram ads Facebook won't show you", Signal said it created a "multi-variant targeted ad" that would "show you the personal data that Facebook collects about you and sells access to."
However, Signal claimed that Facebook rejected ads by Signal that highlight the types of data Facebook collects from its users, the encrypted messaging service said in the blog post on Tuesday.
The blog post reads, "Being transparent about how ads use people’s data is apparently enough to get banned; in Facebook’s world, the only acceptable usage is to hide what you’re doing from your audience."
Signal also shared these ads on Twitter with the caption, "We wanted to use Instagram ads to highlight how ad tech invades your privacy. Instead, Facebook shut our account down: http://signal.org/blog/the-instagram-ads-you-will-never-see/…"
This piece of news has since gone viral Twitter and many people are siding with Signal and lauding it for calling out Facebook.
In January 2021, Facebook-owned WhatsApp updated its privacy policy giving itself permission to see communications between users and businesses within the app for marketing or Facebook advertising. This resulted ina lot of people moving to Signal overnight.
Signal uses end-to-end encryption and constantly fights technology giants who ask for user data.
