Signal Protocol — Open Source, Private, Encrypted Mobile Messaging App

Signal is a new Protocol and Mobile Communications App that is Fully Private and Encrypted unlike its counterparts such as WhatsApp and Facebook. This is a big deal in Information Security and Data Privacy especially at this moment in time in 2021 and many tech titans such as Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey are advocating for Signal and for people to use more private protocols like these. This is not only because they are for freedom of speech and against cancel culture and deplatforming but also because these types of apps represent a threat to the current Big Tech Companies and their business models that fuel surveillance capitalism.

c|net | Elon Musk says to use Signal instead of Facebook. Here’s how the messaging app works

This is because many large tech companies such as Facebook not only collect massive amounts of user data which they sell to unknown third parties in the attention, ad-tech driven and surveillance capitalist business model which they have built but because they also can deplatform or “cancel” anyone they don’t agree with or who might have opposing thoughts which are deemed as conflicts of interest.

Signal doesn’t store any personal data or contact information and is highly transparent about their work because they are an open-source organization rather than a corporation. This is a nice technical video that covers everything from how Signal works, the privacy framework behind it, the business model it uses to the features they have from encryption to User Interface, etc.

Although I am generally for freedom of speech and generally against Cancel Culture, I agree with many Big Tech Companies’ such as Twitter and Facebook’s recent decisions to deplatform Trump and QAnon Accounts because of their hate speech and extremist ideologies which culminated in the violence we saw emerge in the Capitol Riots. I believe that free speech is necessary regardless of political lines or philosophical ideologies to encourage a healthy diversity of thought, bipartisan progress, and a healthy democracy but free speech must never result in outright hate speech or violence otherwise the safety and wellbeing of people are put in grave danger and risk as well as the functioning democracy.