While some messaging applications openly share all the information with governmental structures, others try to protect private lives of their users. WhatsApp, which was released in 2009 and acquired by Facebook in 2014, has doubtful reputation when it comes to access to the private information (1). In contrast, its competitor, Telegram, created in 2013, can be described as «simply WhatsApp without any of the icky data sharing with Facebook» (2).
Telegram was developed by Russian entrepreneur, Pavel Durov, who in 2006 started a social network, VKontakte, and was seen as Russia’s Mark Zuckerberg. When the entrepreneur sold VKontakte in 2014 and moved to the US, he launched Telegram. Pavel Durov insists that the privacy is the priority for the company and uses special secure messaging protocol, MTProto, to protect the information. While remaining faithful to his position, he does not disclose the encryption technique to governmental institutions. It led to the situation where Telegram was called «a platform for coordinating terrorism» by French investigators and was recently blocked in Russia and Iran. Still, some users in these countries use virtual private networks (VPNs) to hide their geographical location and in that way circumvent restrictions.
People love Telegram because it is more feature-rich than WhatsApp (3) and gives a lot of information channels for every taste. Additionally, Pavel Durov explains that “Telegram is heavily encrypted and privacy-oriented, but <they are> no friends of terrorists— in fact, every month <they> block thousands of ISIS-related public channels” (4). Telegram has big plans — beyond a planned $1.2 billion ICO it is also developing its own platform for blockchain-based services — and it took a notable step towards making its messaging platform more useful as it rolled out a web login widget (5).
Is there any chance that Telegram will grow into something more than messaging application? Or it will face insurmountable obstacles in the form of governmental institutions?
And once again Privacy or Security? It is very fundamental issue, which we all are challenged to address in the Digital Era.
- https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/02/world/europe/telegram-iran-russia.html
- https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/17/17246150/telegram-russia-ban
- https://beebom.com/telegram-vs-whatsapp-messenger/
- https://www.wsj.com/articles/messaging-app-telegram-to-boost-efforts-to-remove-terror-linked-content-1500214488?mg=prod/accounts-wsj
- https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/07/telegram-web-login-widget/
Hey Anastasia, thank you for your post.
I am a Telegram enthusiast, it is just so much better than Whatsapp from so many points of view! Not only it actually encrypts your data, ensuring you a higher level of protection and privacy, but it also offers higher quality features.
For example, it is possible to share files of greater dimensions, groups can be a lot more numerous and it is possible to join channels. One peculiarity I really enjoy and find unbelievably useful is the fact that you can log in on as many devices as you wish, even if they are not connected to the same network. If your phone breaks, you can still send messages to friends from your computer, tablet or whatsoever device. This is indeed extremely handy.
Unfortunately, people do not understand the superiority of the Russian messaging app and simply use Whatsapp because it is more popular. I personally think that the competition between Whatsapp and Telegram is a perfect example of how network effect helps you win the market and crush the competition. In fact, as things are at the moment, I don’t expect Telegram to take over the market: people are simply locked in because of the enormous customer base Whatsapp was able to reach. Of course, a couple of years ago, it was among the best messaging app and it managed to integrate numerous functions (once people used Skype or Viber to make calls, were unable to share voice messages or video messages and could only update stories on Snapchat), but now it is different.
Nevertheless, I am sure that as people become more and more aware of what is at stake, they will demand and obtain much more careful data management and processing from the companies they share their information with. Things are already changing.