Project Liberty
Group chats: Today’s private internet
We live in the age of the group chat. Consider WhatsApp as an example.
- Between 2012 and 2023, WhatsApp gained 2.5 billion monthly active users (or 30% of the global population). Today, the most popular messaging app in the world has over 3 billion monthly active users, and is growing at about 8% per year.
- One study found that fewer than 2% of WhatsApp users use the app exclusively for one-on-one messaging. “The group chat feature is used frequently by nearly every WhatsApp user,” the study concluded. The app is more of a group chat messaging app than a one-to-one messaging app.
- WhatsApp is dominant in places like India and Brazil, with WeChat as the messaging app of choice in China (it has grown from 50 million users in 2012 to over 1.4 billion today).
- The end-to-end encrypted Signal messaging app has been gaining traction and users from WhatsApp, as well. It has 70 million monthly active users. Meanwhile, iMessage has over 1 billion monthly active users.
The content shared in private one-on-one or group messages is considered “dark social” content. Unlike the “dark web,” dark social content is considered “dark” because it is out of sight on public platforms and difficult to track. According to analysts, 95% of all content shared online is dark social content. What we see on feeds on social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, or X accounts for only 5%.
