The Telegram subreddit also doesn’t allow articles that criticize Telegram or Pavel Durov on privacy.
Thats more of a fair criticism of Reddit and the hivemind communities it tends to attract in general. You can freely criticise Telegram on Telegram itself (groups, channels etc.).
suggests that you don’t believe Telegram has ever violated privacy?
I put it in quotes because its a phrase you used directly. We may disagree with the extent and i would not call it that in general but its not that important of a point for me to hold out on.
Telegram has consistently lied to its users by saying they don’t share data, when they have. And they covertly changed their privacy policy by using weasel words to covey that they don’t share data, when they actually do.
Again, id say its a bit of a hyperbole. What exact case are you referring to here? If its a federal request they have to comply. They are still not “sharing” data in the traditional sense. I don’t think its misleading.
Are you saying that Telegram users can manually enable E2EE? If yes, you know very well that 99.99% of users don’t. And if some did, I am confident that most Telegram users would not want to chat with someone who only wants to use secret chats.
Yes, im saying that. You could make the argument that its a question of defaults and i think thats fair. It would be better to have it enabled by default but that doesn’t change the fact that the option is implemented. Regardless of what the users do with the feature-set, its there for them.
The argument against Telegram, from a privacy standpoint, is that Telegram is terrible for privacy. Telegram continues to market itself as a privacy protecting service, when they are anything but. That is the problem.
Agree to disagree. Proton could intercept/read all your mail if they’d want. Its a matter of trust, and i trust them not to. Telegram users have options to decide to what extent they want to trust the service. Deleting a message/chat also deletes it from their end or you could use secret chats. Discord doesn’t have any way to do any of this and you always have to trust china to handle your stuff well. I dont think its comparable.
I wont contend with the arguments you made against Durov personally because im not him, and i don’t represent/share his worldview.
No. It’s a criticism of Telegram and its devotees. I could be wrong, but I would not be surprised if Telegram employees are part of or influence the moderation policy.
What is the point of criticizing Telegram on Telegram? The point of doing it on Reddit is to do it publicly for all to see. As far as I know, there are no dedicated public channels or groups for discussing Telegram’s practices.
I also suspect that if such a group/channel existed, the risk of getting disappeared by Telegram for saying negative things would not be insignificant. And given the data Telegram has on its users, it’s a risk I would not take lightly.
What would you call it then? How would you describe Telegram sharing data on its users, disclosing their identity, and then lying about it? If it’s not a privacy violation, what is it?
If Telegram receives a court order that confirms you’re a terror suspect, we may disclose your IP address and phone number to the relevant authorities. So far, this has never happened. When it does, we will include it in a semiannual transparency report published at: https://t.me/transparency.
This implies Telegram will only share your IP and phone number if you are a terror suspect, and that they will disclose it publicly if it happens.
As previously documented, in 2022 Telegram shared user data with Indian authorities. It was for copyright infringement, not terrorism.
The same year they shared data with German authorities, it was for a variety of crimes, including terrorism and child abuse. Telegram never shared a transparency report admitting to disclosing data about terror suspects when they said they would. And child abusers are not terrorists.
To this day, we have disclosed 0 bytes of user messages to third parties, including government
Notice the change of language from zero bytes of user data, to zero bytes of messages?
It implies but doesn’t explicitly admit that Telegram shares user data, specifically, metadata.
WHY DOES TELEGRAM MAKE THIS ADMISSION TACITLY & COVERTLY ?
Many apps and websites share unavoidable pop up messages when they have important policy changes they want their users to know about. Telegram could have done that, but they didn’t.
In his statement, he DOES NOT acknowledge sharing user data with Indian and German authorities in 2022. He also DOES NOT acknowledge sharing user data with French authorities in 2024, which is linked to his arrest.
a) Right up until September 2024, they said that they never shared any user data with authorities when they had done so two years prior with Germany and India.
b) Right up until September 2024, they said they only shared metadata about confirmed terrorist suspects, but they shared data with German and Indian authorities about non-terrorists suspects in 2022.
d) They mislead their users into believing that their privacy is protected when it’s not. By saying they never shared any data from messages, they obscure the fact that they share metadata.
e) They obscure the fact that just as they have the power to share metadata, they have the power to share user data, i.e. messages, because most of it is NOT E2EE.
You disagree that Telegram is terrible at protecting privacy? Oof!
So you disagree with the consensus of privacy experts in the Infosec community and beyond? You disagree with all the documented facts I provided you that should shatter your perception of Telegram?
Ok…
I’m shocked by how misinformed your statement is. That is patently false. Unlike Telegram, Proton emails are E2EE by default between Proton users. Moreover, Proton has zero-access encryption, which prevents them for reading emails with non-Proton users.
Calm down. Im done with this conversation because you’re not seeming to understand what im writing. I don’t see what warrants the tone of language you use when i said nothing bad to/about you.
I you want to seriously discuss this, i can DM you my Signal nane.
I apologize if my tone was a little aggressive. I’ve laid out all the evidence and said all I wanted to say. I don’t think we need to discuss it further on Signal. It’s good to know that you have Signal!
For the record, I don’t fault you or anyone for using Telegram. The same way that I don’t fault anyone for using Facebook or WhatsApp. I understand why people use it.
My issue is first and foremost with Telegram itself for lying and deceiving its users. And secondly, I take issue with the fact that a significant portion of ardent Telegram users seem to be willfully blind when it comes to the app’s privacy weaknesses and refuse to allow criticism on Telegram’s Subreddit.
If people are going to use Telegram, they should be very careful what they share and what groups they join. I would also recommend using a virtual number for one’s account (from my experience it works!) and having all the messages in group chats automatically self-destruct after a week.
There is currently no way to easily delete all your messages in a group chat unless you are an administrator. The only way to do it is manually, which can take a long time when you have months or years of messages.
