Again, in contrast to Facebook, Google and Twitter, Telegram's founder Pavel Durov runs his company in relative secrecy from Dubai. On Feb. 27, however, he admitted from his Russian-language account that "Telegram channels are increasingly becoming a source of unverified information related to Ukrainian events." False news often spreads via public groups, or chats, with potentially fatal effects. 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鈥檚 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鈥檛 as secure earned it some criticism. If you鈥檙e looking for something that is considered more reliable by privacy advocates, then Signal is the EFF鈥檚 preferred platform, although that too is not without some caveats. Oleksandra Matviichuk, a Kyiv-based lawyer and head of the Center for Civil Liberties, called Durov鈥檚 position "very weak," and urged concrete improvements.
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