Which social networking app has surged in popularity recently?

People around the world have taken to the streets over the last week to protest the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis. And according to recent data, many of them have taken steps to protect themselves digitally.

Signal is an encrypted messaging app designed to keep a user’s communications private from everyone except the intended recipient. All photos, videos and messages sent with the app are encrypted end-to-end, meaning if the device was confiscated by law enforcement, they would be unable to access that content. For this reason, the app has become immensely popular among protestors.

According to Business Insider, as of Tuesday, in the U.S. alone Signal was the eighth most downloaded on iOS and the 10th most downloaded for Android. Signal also announced that it will be rolling out new features designed specifically for protestors, including a face-blurring tool for photos so that users can protect the identities of the protestors around them in any images that they share.