Signal Downloads Surge After U.S. Officials' Secret Chat Leak Amid Yemen Scandal
Signal sees a 45% spike in U.S. downloads after a leaked government chat exposed military plans.
Matilda
Signal Downloads Surge After U.S. Officials' Secret Chat Leak Amid Yemen Scandal
The encrypted messaging app Signal is getting some unexpected attention this week. Image:Signal High-ranking officials in the Trump administration, including Vice President J. D. Vance and Secretary of Defense Peter Hegseth, communicated the plans for an attack on the Yemeni Houthis via a potentially unauthorized group chat on Signal. However, Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg was mistakenly added to the group chat, giving him access to these highly sensitive discussions, which he later published. The Signal app itself did not malfunction or operate in an unintended way. Rather, it is user error to accidentally add a journalist to a chat about U.S. military plans — an error that government security protocols should be able to prevent if they’re actually followed. When the Atlantic’s story broke on Monday, worldwide Signal downloads on iOS and Google Play were up 28% from the daily average over the last 30 days, per app intelligence firm Appfigures. In the U.S., downloads were up …
