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Journalism of Courage
Earlier this week, news broke out that hackers have managed to steal the personal data of 500 million active users from WhatsApp. This claim was first made by Cybernews, which claimed that the hackers are willing to put the data for purchase. This claim raised questions about WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption that keeps private exchanges safe from a privacy breach.
In response to these accusations, a WhatsApp spokesperson has said “The claim written on Cybernews is based on unsubstantiated screenshots. There is no evidence of a ‘data leak’ from WhatsApp.”
Soon after the allegations of data theft surfaced, netizens flooded Twitter with memes and jokes about the cross-platform messaging app.
https://twitter.com/abhaysrivastavv/status/1597227609561378816
https://twitter.com/khananiabdulb/status/1597305363853766656
https://twitter.com/adv_alok_ranjan/status/1597234744177360897
https://twitter.com/TheSpacemonke1/status/1597231478005719040
While many people raised concerns about the seriousness of their privacy infringement that can lead to financial fraud and identity theft, many people joked that they will not be affected by it.
A Twitter user commented that the public’s reactions show as if they will stop using WhatsApp and asked the hackers to take his data as well, for only “four people text me anyway”.
Another person said, “I’m really not surprised at #WhatsApp data leak news. Afterall it’s a Meta/Facebook bought thing!”
