According to a statement from the business, Wickr Me, an encrypted messaging service owned by Amazon, ceased taking on new users after December 31 and will shut down entirely on December 31 of this year.
The decision, which was initially announced in November, comes in the wake of several controversies involving the highly secure chat app, which made it popular with security-conscious groups like hackers, drug dealers, and journalists by allowing users to sign up without a phone number or other potentially identifying information.
An investigation by NBC News in June found that many persons dealing with child sexual assault material were turning to Wickr Me as their preferred commodity. The study found 72 court instances from the previous five years in which the defendant was said to have traded child sex abuse materials via Wickr, as it is often known. At the time, Wickr wasn't doing enough to find or report the trafficking of such material on its platform, according to law enforcement authorities and a representative of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, who spoke to NBC News.
An Amazon Web Services representative claimed in a statement sent to NBC News in June that the company was dedicated to stopping child sexual abuse material (CSAM) in all areas of its operations, including Wickr, which upholds strong Terms of Use that expressly forbid criminal activities. In response to information of unlawful activity, we take swift action, comply with demands from law authorities, and implement the necessary measures. Account cancellation is possible for anybody proven to have violated our conditions.
Wickr definitely cooperates with law authorities on these important issues, according to the spokeswoman.
AWS Wickr and Wickr Enterprise, the firm's business-to-business products, will receive additional attention and resources as a result of Wickr Me's closure, the company said in a statement in November. The business it conducts with government organizations like the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security was not mentioned in the piece.
On Jan. 1, the app refused to let NBC News register a new test account, stating: "Wickr Me will not support new users starting 31-Dec-2022." Wickr Me won't be accessible after December 31, 2023.
In 2012, Wickr was established, bringing high-level encryption to a consumer messaging service. The business had secured $39 million in investment as of 2015. Several media publications claimed that in the same year that the app was being used by the terrorist group Islamic State to attract new members. The Deseret Morning News reported on one of the first cases when a person dealing with child pornography on the app was successfully prosecuted in 2016.
Wickr was purchased by Amazon Web Services in June 2021. Since the purchase, the corporation has been under scrutiny over its government contracts with organizations like Customs and Border Protection. It has also drawn attention for its involvement in incidents involving the destruction of official documents through an app.
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