In the days following Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election, a relatively obscure texting app called Signal went viral on social media and its downloads spiked. Created by non-profit Open Whisper Systems, the app offers an extremely secure communication protocol of end-to-end encryption, meaning that any communication can only be read by the people who send and receive the messages.

And unlike other end-to-end encrypted products, such as Apple’s iMessage, Signal’s Snowden-endorsed protocol is open-source, providing verifiable public proof of security. In other words, anyone who wants to see how the system encrypts something can look at the code.

With anti-media sentiment in the White House growing and at least 10 states proposing crackdowns on peaceful protesting, the thirst for encrypted messaging is only growing.

“Millions of people used Signal before the election,” Signal’s creator Moxie Marlinspike told Yahoo Finance in an email. “Growth has continued to accelerate since then. We’ve seen a sustained 400% increase in daily installs.”

Snap has lagged behind Apple iMessage, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Google

In a messaging landscape that increasingly prioritizes security, one company has been conspicuously absent: Snap. Meanwhile, services like Facebook’s Messenger (FB), WhatsApp, Apple (AAPL) iMessage, Google’s Allo (GOOG), and others have all increased security.

“People expect their messages to be secure,” a Facebook spokesperson told Yahoo Finance. “Nearly all of the most popular messaging services use encryption. Encryption is one of the most important tools governments, companies and individuals have to promote safety and security.”

Snapchat, however, has not responded to this paradigm shift. Founded on the premise of disappearing messages by its current CEO Evan Spiegel, the app has long been the go-to messaging service for sensitive content and information, which led to its reputation as the “teen sexting app,” as Stratechery’s Ben Thompson called it. Snap did not respond to numerous requests for comment.

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel has been hailed as one of the most visionary Silicon Valley CEOs since Apple’s Steve Jobs. Source: AP More

Today, the app boasts 158 million daily active users, and its parent company, Snap, is poised to make an IPO on March 2, with expectations topping a $25 billion valuation on the open market.

Unlike Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, Snap correctly assumed that not everyone wants a permanent, searchable trail of potentially compromising internet behavior. Snapchat privacy, through ephemerality, was its biggest asset. Before Snapchat, no company seemed to have recognized the value of a throwaway picture.

“We don’t stockpile your private communication, and we don’t show your friends an ongoing history of everything you’ve ever posted,” Snapchat says on its privacy page. “We believe that this approach makes the Snapchat app feel less like a permanent record, and more like a conversation with friends.”

Despite it being the app for sharing sensitive photographs, Snap appears unconcerned with being an industry leader in encryption and privacy, as other companies like Facebook have by implementing end-to-end encryption. In the reports of White House staffers using apps with enhanced security, Snap has been conspicuously absent. Meanwhile, favored apps like Signal and Confide have increased in status.

Snap has a history of playing it loose and sharing info with the the government

Though Snap advertises that its chats self-destruct, the company settled with the FTC in 2014 for not destroying data, misleading its users about how “disappeared” photos really were and having unsecured databases of numbers and names that could have been accessed by attackers.

Currently, Snap’s policy is to delete Snapchats automatically from its servers after the Snapchat has been opened. However, the system is not completely sealed. Requests from law enforcement, for example, can result in intercepted chat messages. “In certain limited circumstances it may be possible for us to retrieve the content of sent Snaps,” reads the current law enforcement policy, which notes that it’s often not possible after all messaging parties have opened the content. Additionally, email addresses, phone numbers, IPs and login information can be subpoenaed.