With Threats to Encryption Looming, Signal’s Meredith Whittaker Says ‘We’re Not Changing’
WiredThe secure messaging app Signal is famous for knowing as little about its users as possible. Its president, Meredith Whittaker, sees a massive shift underway and an “invitation for action” as the monoliths of Big Tech lose popularity and the old economics of Silicon Valley become brittle. At WIRED’s The Big Interview event in San Francisco on Tuesday, Whittaker talked about Signal’s increasing role as critical infrastructure for communication around the world, and the contributions it can make in developing a new model for funding vital tech projects. Signal “is something it is clear there is a market for and people want, and yet we have to squeeze ourselves into a nonprofit shape that is not quite conducive for the high availability real-time tech we are maintaining and developing,” Whittaker said at the event, “simply because there’s no real way to make a profit in the tech industry given the surveillance incentives.” As a messaging and calling app, Signal aims to be as simple and easy to use as possible so people don’t have to sacrifice user experience to communicate privately. The app doesn’t have a social media component and there are no plans to integrate AI, but Signal still regularly comes out with new features to make the app more robust.