Individual messages can be fully encrypted. But the user has to turn on that function. It's not automatic, as it is on Signal and WhatsApp. On Telegram’s website, it says that Pavel Durov “supports Telegram financially and ideologically while Nikolai (Duvov)’s input is technological.” Currently, the Telegram team is based in Dubai, having moved around from Berlin, London and Singapore after departing Russia. Meanwhile, the company which owns Telegram is registered in the British Virgin Islands. Recently, Durav wrote on his Telegram channel that users' right to privacy, in light of the war in Ukraine, is "sacred, now more than ever." The original Telegram channel has expanded into a web of accounts for different locations, including specific pages made for individual Russian cities. There's also an English-language website, which states it is owned by the people who run the Telegram channels. Unlike Silicon Valley giants such as Facebook and Twitter, which run very public anti-disinformation programs, Brooking said: "Telegram is famously lax or absent in its content moderation policy."
from fr