Wickr Me, a popular encrypted chat app by Amazon, will be closing down its services to the public in late December 2023.
The e-commerce giant first revealed in November that the platform will be shutting down for good. However, the company did not disclose the reason behind the closure.
Amazon’s Wickr Me is Shutting Down
(Photo : Daria Nepriakhina on Unsplash)
Wickr Me will end its service later this year after investigators discovered that it’s used for illegal operations.
A Wickr staff posted two months ago that the encrypted messaging app Wickr Me will be discontinued in 2023. This means that new users won’t be able to use the app in 2024.
In a new report by NBC News, the company will bid goodbye to the platform because of the issues that surround it.
For instance, several people claim that the app has become an outlet of hacking and child sexual abuse exploitation.
The authorities noted in an investigation that some people used Wickr Me to trade malicious pictures depicting minors.
The allegations tackled that a defendant has been using the app to carry out illegal operations. Over the past five years, there were 72 court cases linked to the use of the messaging tool.
NBC News also found out that despite the controversies about the App, the Wickr team is not doing anything to alleviate the rising cases of explicit material trading.
Additionally, the team did not exert effort to detect the responsible people behind the exploitation. In this sense, the action was considered unacceptable given that the company could have consulted to the experts to report these illicit acts.
“Amazon is committed to preventing child sexual abuse material (CSAM) in every segment of our business, including Wickr, which maintains strict Terms of Use that clearly prohibit illegal activity,” the company spokesperson previously said in a statement.
The representative added that any person who will violate their terms in the app will face account termination.
Amazon is Ditching Wickr Me to Focus on Other Products
Aside from the fact that the app is now teeming with controversies, Amazon planned to ditch the messaging platform to venture other business opportunities.
As Amazon said back in November, the company is expected to “devote more resources” and move forward to explore its “business-to-business products.”
When you try to sign up with the app at this time, you will see an alert which says that “Wickr Me will not support new users starting 31-Dec-2022. Wickr Me will be unavailable after 31-Dec-2023.”
Related Article: Wickr App is Being Used by Criminals to Spread Indecent Images; Did Amazon Start Solving the Issue?
Wickr Me Alternatives
Wickr Me will be off for good in the next 11 months starting today. If you’re planning to use a similar app with this platform, you can try the following alternatives.
AlternativeTo recommends you to test these apps once Wickr bids its last farewell.
- Signal
- Element
- Matrix.org
- Discord
- Tox
- Slack
- Jami
- Keybase
- Wire
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