The company has updated its FAQ page to say that private chats are no longer shielded from moderation.
Telegram has quietly removed language from its FAQ page that said private chats were protected from moderation requests. The change comes nearly two weeks after its CEO, Pavel Durov, was arrested in France for allegedly allowing “criminal activity to go on undeterred on the messaging app.”
Earlier today, Durov issued his first public statement since his arrest, promising to moderate content more on the platform, a noticeable change in tone after the company initially said he had “nothing to hide.”
“Telegram’s abrupt increase in user count to 950M caused growing pains that made it easier for criminals to abuse our platform,” he wrote in the statement shared on Thursday. “That’s why I made it my personal goal to ensure we significantly improve things in this regard. We’ve already started that process internally, and I will share more details on our progress with you very soon.”
Translation: Durov is completely compromised and will do whatever NATO tells him to do. Do not trust in the security of Telegram, which frankly was never that good to begin with. And do not trust anything else even remotely connected to the company or Durov personally.
Have you used both of them?
Signal UI/UX is like using a cheap SMS app. This is a big deal for getting people to use it.
It doesn't sync to other devices (it does, but it's manual).
Telegram I can grab the device in front of me and it shows exactly what is on any other device.
As does any XMPP chat.
Alternatively there's Teleguard, by SwissCows. They claim e2e for all comms, noting stored on their servers. It's like using Telegram.
Yes, I really like the Signal UX. It does everything I need it to and very few pointless gimmicks. Telegram feels a lot more scuffed and further from a normal SMS app. Granted I've never used either on desktop.
Signal is CIA. Stop promoting it.