WhatsApp updated its privacy policy and was planning to implement it by 8 February. But this decision welcomed a lot of criticism from the users as the concern regarding the privacy of personal chats and messages and the data shared on the platform. It eventually benefitted other competitors such as and most profited from this case, Signal, a private messaging app. A lot of WhatsApp users deleted their WhatsApp account and shifted to Signal, which came as the most secure alternative to WhatsApp. Accounting to this wave of criticism, WhatsApp thought that it is in their best interest to postpone the implementation of the new updated privacy policy and prevent losing their valuable loyal users. The whole case was just a result of the spread of misinformation among people; WhatsApp actually said that the updated privacy policy includes only businesses. This means that once you accept the privacy policy of WhatsApp, the app has the right to share user details and transaction details, and the privacy of individual and personal chat was not compromised. WhatsApp offers end-to-end encryption meaning that only the communicating users can read the messages, so the question raised was that an updated privacy policy will eliminate this system, and the intellectual property of the users will go public. To infuriate this fear and doubt of the users, personal chats of the very famous journalist, Arnab Goswami went viral, disclosing some serious information and causing him a lot of trouble. How the chat got leaked? And is WhatsApp doing anything to get hold of the source who leaked the chats? 

Incidents like these questioned the reliability of WhatsApp's new privacy policy and lost the faith of many loyal users. WhatsApp suffered a huge loss over this and panic among the users was not in control of the platform anymore. Another question that arose was that will WhatsApp share personal data with other platforms and in fact, its parent company Facebook. We already how our data is being shared with and without our consent and the era of new media has resulted in the rise in the cases related to the leak of confidential and personal data.

The case went so out of hand and the concerns of users were constantly demanding answers that finally government felt the need to intervene to resolve and settle the matter at hand. The Minister of State for IT and communications, Sanjay Dhotre made an announcement and asked the users to maintain peace and not jump to conclusions. They asked the messaging app to revise the privacy policy and clear all the doubts as soon as they can. WhatsApp abides by the order and assured the users that they are postponing the implementation till 15 may, and will do everything in power to make the app secure and safe for the users but also requested users to accept the policy till then. We can't deny the fact that WhatsApp is a well-established brand in the market and probably the only reliable and convenient messaging app, it stores a lot of data and there are tons of confidential data transacted through WhatsApp, so naturally becomes the responsibility of the application to be responsible and address its users and assure their privacy and safety.

According to my thoughts, ethics are one's morale that classifies one's action as good or bad and right or wrong. Ethics help in deciding our actions and to choose rationally from competing options while keeping the good of society and others in mind. Having ethics means having inner peace and harmony. Ethics are concerned with how a moral person should behave and help in putting principles into action. Ethics plays an important role in achieving social approval and respect as it showcases what we say we value and what our actions say we value. But what is ethical in new media is a whole new topic for debate. If we consider media as a means to communicate then I would say that communication is ethical when the trust of both parties is kept and transparency is taken into consideration. As a media platform, I think that it's their responsibility to respect and protect the privacy of your audience and be honest with them while keeping the bar of transparency high.

What went wrong with WhatsApp is that they kept the audience in dark and expected them to accept the policy without any context and prior information. Sharing business messages is ethical and is not harming anyone's privacy. WhatsApp revealed that big cooperates pay them to use the platform to reach their customers. If the consent of both the parties is there then it is ethical, but the real issue was not related to the sharing of business messages but the actual concern was regarding personal messages and data. I think that it is unethical of these well-established new media platforms to share and sell personal information of users without them having any knowledge about it.

To support my argument I would like to point out a case where WhatsApp in 2016, shared personal information of the users such as phone numbers and profile pictures with its parent company Facebook just to improve friend recommendation and ads on the app, this resulted in a wave of criticism faced by the application because users got annoyed and scared at the same time. These unethical attempts of WhatsApp in the past made users more cautious about the information they share on these platforms. This can lead to misuse of personal data and who knows if they secretly share your personal WhatsApp number to advertisers in the name of 'efficient engagement'.

I think that being irresponsible and ignorant with personal data of users is unethical and the criticism faced by WhatsApp although it was mostly based on misinformation, was right because as a user we should have the right to privacy and platforms like WhatsApp should co-operate with the users to protect the right.

I always thought that new media will provide a safe and independent space to express yourself and to regain personal identity. But as the new media emerged in society, along with tremendous advantages comes responsibility and the need for regulation. As we looked at the case of WhatsApp I think that social media platforms and other new media platforms are in great need to be regulated. These platforms should be transparent and abide by the community guidelines that they make. Recently government released guidelines for OTT platforms and suggested self-regulation, I think that social media platforms like WhatsApp and Instagram should also follow self-regulation and regulate the content that flows through their platforms