Privacy-focused messaging app Signal has employed former Google supervisor and tech critic Meredith Whittaker as its first president, it introduced in a blog post. She’s already on the board of administrators, together with WhatsApp founder, interim CEO and Facebook critic Brian Acton and former CEO/encryption evangelist Moxie Marlinspike. Her focus, she stated, can be on technique, communication and the inspiration’s long-term monetary well being.
“I will be working with Signal’s CEO and leadership, with a particular focus on guiding Signal’s strategy, ensuring our financial sustainability, sharpening and broadening Signal’s public communications, and whatever else is needed to strengthen the app and the org,” she stated. Whittaker may also support within the seek for a everlasting CEO to switch Acton.
Whittaker rose to prominence because the founding father of Google’s Open Research Group and organizer of a walkout after it emerged that Google had paid off executives accused of sexual harassment, together with Andy Rubin. She left the search big in 2019, and went on to type the AI Now Institute at NYU, aiming to “ensure that AI systems are accountable to the communities and contexts in which they’re applied,” in keeping with its mission statement. She’s additionally a senior adviser on AI to the Federal Trade Commission and joined the Signal Foundation’s board in 2020.
Signal at the moment counts over 140 million customers after receiving a major increase following a backlash in opposition to WhatsApp’s privateness coverage adjustments final yr. Along with Firefox, Signal is without doubt one of the few apps dedicated to privateness reasonably than income by way of knowledge assortment. To that finish, Whittaker plans to deal with sustaining the corporate’s well being by way of small donations from hundreds of thousands of customers who “kick in a little bit,” she informed The Washington Post. “We do have growth goals, but they are driven by our mission, not by a desire for profit,” she added.
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