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Telegram | DID YOU KNOW?
But Telegram says people want to keep their chat history when they get a new phone, and they like having a data backup that will sync their chats across multiple devices. And that is why they let people choose whether they want their messages to be encrypted or not. When not turned on, though, chats are stored on Telegram's services, which are scattered throughout the world. But it has "disclosed 0 bytes of user data to third parties, including governments," Telegram states on its website. Telegram has become more interventionist over time, and has steadily increased its efforts to shut down these accounts. But this has also meant that the company has also engaged with lawmakers more generally, although it maintains that it doesn’t do so willingly. For instance, in September 2021, Telegram reportedly blocked a chat bot in support of (Putin critic) Alexei Navalny during Russia’s most recent parliamentary elections. Pavel Durov was quoted at the time saying that the company was obliged to follow a “legitimate” law of the land. He added that as Apple and Google both follow the law, to violate it would give both platforms a reason to boot the messenger from its stores. You may recall that, back when Facebook started changing WhatsApp’s terms of service, a number of news outlets reported on, and even recommended, switching to Telegram. Pavel Durov even said that users should delete WhatsApp “unless you are cool with all of your photos and messages becoming public one day.” But Telegram can’t be described as a more-secure version of WhatsApp. 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. Messages are not fully encrypted by default. That means the company could, in theory, access the content of the messages, or be forced to hand over the data at the request of a government.
from PL