The next bit isn’t clear, but Durov reportedly claimed that his resignation, dated March 21st, was an April Fools’ prank. TechCrunch implies that it was a matter of principle, but it’s hard to be clear on the wheres, whos and whys. Similarly, on April 17th, the Moscow Times quoted Durov as saying that he quit the company after being pressured to reveal account details about Ukrainians protesting the then-president Viktor Yanukovych. "And that set off kind of a battle royale for control of the platform that Durov eventually lost," said Nathalie Maréchal of the Washington advocacy group Ranking Digital Rights. "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." 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.
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