"Russians are really disconnected from the reality of what happening to their country," Andrey said. "So Telegram has become essential for understanding what's going on to the Russian-speaking world." In the United States, Telegram's lower public profile has helped it mostly avoid high level scrutiny from Congress, but it has not gone unnoticed. Continuing its crackdown against entities allegedly involved in a front-running scam using messaging app Telegram, Sebi on Thursday carried out search and seizure operations at the premises of eight entities in multiple locations across the country. In addition, Telegram's architecture limits the ability to slow the spread of false information: the lack of a central public feed, and the fact that comments are easily disabled in channels, reduce the space for public pushback. If you initiate a Secret Chat, however, then these communications are end-to-end encrypted and are tied to the device you are using. That means it’s less convenient to access them across multiple platforms, but you are at far less risk of snooping. Back in the day, Secret Chats received some praise from the EFF, but the fact that its standard system isn’t as secure earned it some criticism. If you’re looking for something that is considered more reliable by privacy advocates, then Signal is the EFF’s preferred platform, although that too is not without some caveats.
from fr
