Why Signal adds thousands of new users in a few hours

Signal is an instant messaging application known for the high levels of encryption of its messages that, in the last few hours, has been experiencing a real boom in new users. This is causing their servers to crash for several hours and new account verification messages being sent to the phones of those who sign up for them are taking considerably longer to arrive.

Apparently several thousand people have applied to join Signal in the last few hours. The application, which has been active for five years and which became known in Spain because it was the one used by the former president of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, from his exile in Belgium , is having more problems than usual in confirming the new accounts .

What is the reason for this boom in new registrations? On the one hand, it could be thought that it is motivated by the change of the Rules of Use in WhatsApp and the obligation to accept them before next February 8 if you want to continue using the instant messaging application.

It may be that part of the new registrations are caused by this matter, although this would also benefit, and possibly more consistently, Telegram. However, there is another reason beyond. After the riots that occurred in Washington on Wednesday and the assault on the United States Capitol , many voices have seen on Facebook - and its ecosystem of applications - possible culprits.

One of the most critical has been Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and since this week the richest man in the world after surpassing Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon. Musk posted a tweet yesterday advising his more than 41 million followers to use Signal.

Musk, who had published other messages about the events that occurred in the US capital with explicit criticism of Facebook, like this one we share below, did not refer in his tweet to using Signal "instead of Facebook", but the allusion omitted was obvious. And clearly, this message has caused a call effect so that Signal receives thousands of new users in just a few hours.