How Whatsapp Desktop App indicates Right to Privacy and Free Speech censored at Rio 2016 Olympics

Finally WhatsApp has done something that makes me declare that WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum has gone “pon the river, pon the bank”, Elephant Man Style, in his disdain for Brazil’s stance on the Right to Privacy and Freedom of Speech.

I'm of course talking about their WhatsApp desktop app for Windows 8+ and Mac OS 10.9+ computers which was announced on their WhatsApp blog on May 10^th, 2016 in the post “Introducing WhatsApp's desktop app”.

 

The App is merely an extension of WhatsApp on your smartphone and is an improvement on the WhatsApp Desktop App that they'd rolled out in on the 21^st January 2015 as reported in my blog article entitled “@WhatsApp comes to the Desktop via the Browser - Why Desktop on Laptop and PC is Mobile Social Network's Last Frontier”.

So why are they releasing yet another Desktop App?

WhatsApp on Desktop - How Right to Privacy and Freedom of Speech being eroded before Rio 2016 Olympics

It may be due to legal issues within Brazil concerning access to user data as noted in the article “WhatsApp launches native desktop app for Windows and Mac”, published MAY 10, 2016 by Ken Yeung, Venturebeat.

 

They've also rolled out E2EE (End to end Encryption) their service since Tuesday April 5^th 2016 as noted in my Geezam blog article entitled “Why Viber and WhatsApp going E2EE as Telecom Providers need encryption”.

So going desktop may be their way of giving users options as to how they can receive their messages, being as they have no plans to compromise on security as pointed out by WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum as noted in the article “WhatsApp Founder Slams Brazil Shut-Down, Says We 'Won't Compromise User Security’”, published May 3, 2016 by Parmy Olson, Forbes.

To use the WhatsApp App, do the following:

1.      Visit https://www.WhatsApp.com/download from your desktop browser

2.      Open the app

3.      Look under Settings for WhatsApp Web menu 

4.      Scan the QR code using the WhatsApp app on your phone

Americans traveling to Rio 2016 Olympics in Brazil may wish to take note of this, as going to Brazil may mean facing outages to WhatsApp Service. So travelling with your Laptop and WhatsApp on your browser will allow you to still receive you messages, voice notes and notifications without having to use your smartphone.

Also, it's potentially harder for Brazil to block. Once the desktop app is authenticated using the procedure above, you can revive your messages on your Laptop WITHOUT the phone. Guess I was right about 2016 being the year of encryption as noted in my Geezam blog article entitled “Why Google’s Blogger is going HTTPS and How to Enable HTTPS”.

Government Censorship means Silicon Valley companies have to find creative ways to allow their users to use their service and preserve Right to Privacy and Freedom of Speech even as they respect the laws of the countries they operate.

Here's the link:

https://www.WhatsApp.com/download