Iranian officials had warned people to stop using WhatsApp, Telegram and other "location-based applications," according to a report from the state-run broadcaster IRIB.

End-to-end encryption is still guaranteed, and Meta also said that if users only use the app to call or message their contacts, there will be “no change to [the] experience at all,” though for many, this promise simply isn’t enough.

After the tech giant announced it would begin to include ads in WhatsApp’s Updates tab, which is used by roughly 1.5 million people per day, Signal president Meredith Whittaker took to X to lure users to her messaging tool: “Use Signal,” she wrote. “We promise, no AI clutter, no surveillance ads—whatever the rest of the industry does.”

Iranian state television on Tuesday afternoon urged the country's public to remove the messaging app WhatsApp from their smart phones, alleging without offering any evidence the app gathered user information to send to Israel.

Despite Iran’s frequent clampdowns on digital communication, WhatsApp remains one of the country’s most-used messaging apps. “We don’t keep logs of who’s messaging whom, and we don’t provide bulk data to any government,

WhatsApp monetization begins, potentially adding $15B+ annual revenue from Meta Platforms, Inc.'s nearly 3B global users. Click for my META stock update.

Por TheWhatsApp informó el lunes que los usuarios comenzarán a ver anuncios en partes de la aplicación de mensajería, ya que su propietario Meta Platforms

WhatsApp is testing ads in Status and paid channel subscriptions, all inside the Updates tab. Private messages remain encrypted and ad-free.