2024 Social Media & Communication Apps

Malcore scores are an objective code based review of android mobile applications from a risk and privacy perspective. Malcore is an automated reverse engineering and malware analysis tool.

Apr 23, 2024

The below graph is the 2024 results. The higher the score the higher the risk.

There is inconsistent public information on active users and downloads per mobile application. We estimated by using the downloads on google play store and adjusted reported monthly active users.

The annual Social Media App Project evaluates the risk and privacy levels of major, popular Android social media applications with the goal of enhancing transparency. This project informs users about the data harvesting practices of these applications.

In 2024, the industry average score increased by 2 points to 28.96.

It is important to clarify that our analysis does not involve a comprehensive code review. Instead, we conduct a static analysis using Malcore's automated tools. A conclusive risk assessment would require a detailed manual source code review and dynamic analysis to observe app behavior in real-time. Although manual reviews are more thorough, they are also time-consuming and costly.

All Malcore research is self-funded, which limits the scope and depth of our investigations. For instance, our 2022 TikTok technical analysis, presented at Internet 2.0, was significantly more detailed and definitive.

We publish the scores for each app in ascending order.

Tuta = 7 (+5.2)

Substack = 9

Zoom = 10

Discord = 11 (+1.4)

Telegram = 13 (-4)

ProtonMail = 15 (+3.35)

WebEx Meetings =15 (-1.1)

Facebook 17 (+0.45)

Session = 17 (-0.25)

Threema = 25 (+8.9)

Signal Messenger = 27 (+5.2)