French digital envoy explains departure from Facebook and WhatsApp

PARIS — Don’t bother reaching out to Henri Verdier on Facebook or WhatsApp next week; he won’t be there.

Verdier, France’s ambassador for digital affairs, decided on February 1 that he would permanently leave the social network and the messaging app it owns — making it public on Twitter — as part of a political and personal conviction.

“I consider that we have a democratic problem with the personalization of content and advertising and that it is time to find serious regulations for all this … It’s not just me, it’s a national position,” Verdier told POLITICO on the phone — after a few WhatsApp texts to set up the interview. 

“On a personal level and to be consistent with this, I draw the conclusion that I am changing my messaging app … and will not feed Facebook’s personalized data machine anymore,” he also said, adding that the next step would be changing his email provider to Protonmail or another alternative. 

This move, which follows recent changes to WhatsApp’s privacy policies, also comes as France is considering pushing for tougher national regulations on targeted advertising. 

See you on Signal

For professional matters, Verdier said he would use Tchap, a messaging service developed by the French government that has had some ups and downs — President Emmanuel Macron still favors Telegram, alongside French policemen who also allegedly prefer it.

Thanks to the EU right of data portability, which allows users to switch between platforms with all their data, Verdier also moved a dozen of his conversation groups on Signal, another app that has gained popularity for its privacy-centric policies after Facebook announced policy changes on WhatsApp.

Updates to WhatsApp’s terms and conditions announced earlier this month have prompted concerns about privacy and led several European data protection authorities to question the company’s policy.

The Italian data protection authority said that recent changes to WhatsApp’s privacy policy were not made clear to its users.

WhatsApp, which insisted there were no changes to its data-sharing practices, with no European data being shared with Facebook for ads, has since delayed implementing its update to May 15 amid the uproar.

“I don’t accuse WhatsApp of being less safe than others … and my problem in this case is not that it’s a foreign company and that it’s better to work with a French company,” Verdier said, adding that France had “gladly” worked with the platform on the Paris Call for Peace in the Cyberspace and the Christchurch Call, aimed at fighting the spread of terrorism content online.

“Encouraging some form of network market where people change when it doesn’t suit them is a necessity,” he added. “There’s some sort of momentum, it’s easier to convince people to move from WhatsApp groups to Signal … without being out of the conversation.”

Asked about the fact that leaving one of the dominant platforms could make it difficult for his work as an ambassador, Verdier said he doesn’t have to use every platform he intends to regulate — even if you can still find him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Snapchat, Mastodon, a kind of open-source and decentralized Twitter, and even TikTok, the video-sharing app popular among teenagers.

France is now thinking of pushing for a tougher national regulation on targeted advertising, Verdier said, despite the faith placed in its own digital advertising champions by Junior Minister for Digital Affairs Cédric O. An interministerial task force involving the Culture and Finance ministries is evaluating the idea of a threshold of users to which a personalized political ad could be pushed by platforms. 

“The more I work on these issues, the more I think that the design of this economy of attention — that brings us into a world where friends, content and adverts are presented in a personalized way — is at the root of many problems we have to face, including the post-truth era, fake news, January 6 [the attack on the U.S. Capitol] and a certain effectiveness of online hate,” Verdier said. And in this perspective, he said Facebook was the one company that had gone further than others in that personalization.

Want more analysis from POLITICO? POLITICO Pro is our premium intelligence service for professionals. From financial services to trade, technology, cybersecurity and more, Pro delivers real time intelligence, deep insight and breaking scoops you need to keep one step ahead. Email [email protected] to request a complimentary trial.