tired of having to pay for SMS messages. The
following few years saw an onslaught of other
apps putting fascinating new spins on what
instant messaging apps could be. They included
WeChat, which started as a WhatsApp clone
but went on to embrace much more than just
instant messaging, as well as Snapchat, with its
selling point of ‘snaps’ that disappeared after a
certain period of time.
This was also an era, however, that saw instant
messaging apps court controversy over the
privacy and security implications of their use.
The multi-platform messaging service Telegram,
for instance, was rolled out for the first time in
late 2013 and promoted itself as the most secure
way to send messages, with all chats, groups
and media supposedly encrypted.
However, it was seemingly precisely because
of this beefed-up security that Telegram was
reportedly the favored messaging app of
terrorists, culminating in the decision of a
Russian court to ban it in the country in 2018.
Nor was Telegram the only instant messaging
service to appeal to nefarious actors during the
late 2010s; the end-to-end encryption used
by WhatsApp also hit the headlines for the
wrong reasons in March 2017, when it emerged
that Khalid Masood had accessed the app
moments before he killed four people in an
attack in Westminster, London, England.
But on a rather more positive note, recent
years have also seen a multitude of innovations
designed to make instant messaging apps more
fun, engaging and/or practical for the average
user, ranging from emojis and GIFs to ‘dark
mode’ functionality and notifications.