SignalGate, because it’s come to be referred to as, will be the greatest scandal to hit the Trump administration in its first months in energy. But it surely’s been nice for Sign.
For the reason that news broke on Monday that senior Trump administration cupboard members unintentionally included the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic in a gaggle chat on the Sign encrypted messaging platform the place the officers have been making secret plans to bomb Yemen, the following information cycle and the fixed mentions of Sign have led to the encrypted messaging platform doubling its typical charge of recent downloads, the non-profit group that runs Sign tells WIRED. Provided that 2025 thus far has already been a “banner 12 months” for Sign’s development, in response to Sign’s management, that makes this week the only greatest bump in US adoption of the app in Sign’s almost 11 years of existence.
“In Sign’s historical past, that is the biggest US-growth second by an enormous margin,” says Jun Harada, Sign’s head of development and partnerships. “It’s mind-blowing, even on our facet.”
Harada declined to present absolute numbers for Sign’s person development past saying that its complete downloads are within the “lots of of hundreds of thousands,” which has been the case for a number of years. However he mentioned that the week’s charge of adoption has been twice that of a typical week for 2025, which in flip was twice that of a typical week the identical time final 12 months. “It occurred instantly” after the Atlantic broke the story of Sign’s use within the Yemeni bombing, Harada says. “And it’s been sustained. We’ve been sustaining that charge every single day.”
In Sign’s historical past, the one comparable spike in adoption occurred when WhatsApp modified its privateness coverage in 2021, Harada says, resulting in hundreds of thousands of customers abandoning that communications app. However that incident principally introduced non-Individuals to Sign, in contrast to the present, US-focused SignalGate bump.
Numbers from the market intelligence agency Sensor Tower largely align with Sign’s personal evaluation of that development: The corporate says that Sign downloads within the US elevated 105 p.c in comparison with the prior week—and 150 p.c in comparison with a median week in 2024. Exterior of the US, Sensor Tower noticed solely a 21 p.c enhance in Sign downloads in comparison with the prior week.
The Atlantic’s revelation on Monday that secretary of protection Pete Hegseth, director of nationwide intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, nationwide safety adviser Michael Waltz, vice chairman JD Vance, and different Trump administration officers used a Sign group chat to plan an airstrike in opposition to Houthi rebels in Yemen—and that Waltz unintentionally added Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg to that group in a stunning breach of confidentiality—has raised severe questions concerning the safety practices of the Trump administration which might be nonetheless resonating days later.
The scandal has referred to as into query whether or not the manager department officers have been planning the airstrike utilizing susceptible non-approved and even private gadgets quite than the safe machines supposed for categorised conversations. Screenshots of the group chat published by The Atlantic on Wednesday point out the officers have been utilizing Sign’s disappearing messages characteristic to delete their communications, doubtlessly in violation of US report retention legal guidelines.