Global craze for Telegram: "The greatest digital migration in history"
Internet users seem to be looking for security of their personal data and confidentiality.
AFP - ALEXANDER NEMENOV
Text by: Alexis Bedu Follow
3 min
The hemorrhage of users at WhatsApp, after the launch of its new terms of service and the announcement of some data shared with Facebook, benefits the Telegram messaging app.
The network has registered more than 25 million new users since the beginning of January.
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Users disappointed with WhatsApp are turning to the competition.
The Signal app would have registered seven and a half million registrations in a few weeks, according to figures from the British Parliament's Home Affairs Committee.
For Telegram, it is an even greater craze with 25 million new users, more particularly in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa.
It would be "
the biggest digital migration in history,
" according to Pavel Durov, CEO founder of Telegram, as reported by the
Boston Globe
.
Signal recommended by Elon Musk
Internet users seem to be looking for security of their personal data and confidentiality.
Faced with WhatsApp, which now indicates in its conditions to
share certain user information
with its parent company Facebook, the Signal application best meets this request.
It does not collect any of this data other than the telephone number required for registration.
Launched by a non-profit association, Signal was also recommended by Elon Musk in a tweet, the day after the “WhatsApp controversy”, loved by more than 300,000 people.
"A tool of resistance"
Telegram works more opaque.
It collects IP addresses and message encryption is not automatic.
It must be activated manually, which is also impossible on group conversations.
This messaging application has been intended, since its creation in 2013, as
"
a tool of resistance
"
.
It was used, for example, by pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong or Belarus.
In Iran, Telegram usage accounts for almost two thirds of the bandwidth.
More recently, in the United States, it is the far-right conspiracyists who have taken refuge on Telegram after the closure of certain accounts decided by Twitter and Facebook.
The network has only 2% of its users in the United States but, according to the
Boston Globe
, Telegram still had to block several hundred messages from activists calling for violence before Joe Biden's inauguration.
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