Many users had migrated to Telegram or Signal although those alternatives are likely to be different story when it comes to essential communication like you'll be told to use Whatsapp instead of the alternative text messaging tools as the other users don't know what they are or maybe one alternative tool isn't widely used in general. The same may go with Zoom video conferencing tool for both business and school and to use the alternative instead of Zoom for more secure video conferencing depends on whichever company you work at. If the company chooses other video conferencing tool instead of Zoom, that's the good thing. But what about personal communication through text messaging? Will you stick back to Whatsapp or use the alternative for that?
There were additional news like Telegram having a migration feature that allows you to import your Whatsapp chats to it. Even various organizations and groups have their Telegram channel you can join although some Telegram group channels may seem questionable to me. Also, the new Privacy Policy change is set to take effect in May after the backlash although it will affect businesses, not end users and even then, many users had already migrated to Telegram or Signal.
Misunderstanding or not, it will not be easy to get yourself convinced and believe that it's a misunderstanding when a controversy like this already occurred. Other controversies I had discovered with the word, misunderstanding, involved included the one regarding obscene Netflix movie, Cu***s, and the one regarding the Playstation 5 scalpers playing victim. How are THOSE controversies considered the misunderstandings when they are fishy stuffs? And there are still IDIOTS falling into the on-going shadiness by mis-believing that it's a misunderstanding! I'm not going to fall for that trick whether it's this controversy or the other.
Lastly, it's not the first time Facebook had caused a controversy like this. There were previous controversies when it comes to privacy violation by a tech company and especially that users were forced to make use of Facebook account for Oculus VR headsets. The worse thing is that Facebook had the recent audacity to lash out on the new privacy controls Apple implemented on IOS 14 as well as to announce the upcoming smartwatch that will come out next year to compete with Apple Watch. To Facebook, it's more about profit than privacy respect when it comes to IOS 14 with its new privacy controls.