14 DAY TRIAL // Popular messaging app WhatsApp is facing a hard time in Brazil, after a judge ordered the suspension of the service for allegedly having failed to help in a criminal investigation.
Judge Luiz de Moura Correia ordered the suspension earlier this month, but according to local news outlet O Globo, the service is still up and running within the Brazilian borders. This is because lawyers have appealed the ruling, so WhatsApp has escaped the sentence for now.
WhatsApp accused of not sharing information with law officers
The judge didn’t disclose the exact reasons why he ruled the way he did, because it’s an ongoing case. Even so, a press officer at the Piaui state’s Public Safety Department shed some light on the matter when he revealed the case is related to sexually graphic photos of children being shared within the app.
WhatsApp did not comment on the Brazilian ruling, but since the company does not have any offices in the country, the judge’s order was delivered to cellphone operators within the borders.
SindiTelebrasil, the organization which represents Brazilian carriers, already made a statement on their website saying that the suspension has the potential to cause huge losses to millions of citizens who use WhatsApp on a daily basis for personal and professional purposes.
The judge maintained that WhatsApp was legally bound to turn over information that could potentially have a legal impact.
However, the matter is not so straight forward. Because WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption, only its users have access to the encryption keys of their private conversations, making it impossible for the company to actually hand over the required information.
Some Brazilians are migrating to the competition
Even if the service continues to work in the country, some users aren’t taking any chances and are already switching to competing messaging platforms. For example, Telegram, which is an end-to-end encryption alternative, tweeted recently that 2.5 million new Brazilian users have joined its ranks recently.
On the other hand, WhatsApp continues its quest to expand its wings of dominion. The company has already launched a web application originally made available via Chrome. But yesterday WhatsApp Web was updated with Firefox and Opera support.
2,5 million new Brazilian users today so far. Some users in the region may have issues with photos, but most problems should be gone by now.
— Telegram Messenger (@telegram) February 26, 2015