Telegram boasts 500 million users, who share information individually and in groups in relative security. But Telegram's use as a one-way broadcast channel β which followers can join but not reply to β means content from inauthentic accounts can easily reach large, captive and eager audiences. 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. Pavel Durov, Telegram's CEO, is known as "the Russian Mark Zuckerberg," for co-founding VKontakte, which is Russian for "in touch," a Facebook imitator that became the country's most popular social networking site. For Oleksandra Tsekhanovska, head of the Hybrid Warfare Analytical Group at the Kyiv-based Ukraine Crisis Media Center, the effects are both near- and far-reaching. 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 itβs 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 isnβt as secure earned it some criticism. If youβre looking for something that is considered more reliable by privacy advocates, then Signal is the EFFβs preferred platform, although that too is not without some caveats.
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