Conspiracy, fake news, crime: Why is Telegram controversial?

Iran 2017-2018: Protests break out in the city of Mashhad — calling out corruption, mismanagement and rising food prices. Within days the protests spread to a dozen other cities and rural communities across the country. The government in Tehran has difficulty getting them under control.

Thailand 2020: Resistance to the military regime of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha grows at universities across the country after being started by an opposition party. The protests quickly pick up steam, eventually leading to a "state of emergency."

Belarus 2020: Presidential elections are slated to take place in a country run for decades by an autocrat. Dictator Alexander Lukashenko's announces he has won reelection in the vote. Months of mass demonstrations ensue.

Anonymous accounts, unlimited chat group sizes 

All of these, as well as other protests have one thing in common: They were largely organized on Telegram.

The messaging service has become one of the most popular in the world since it was co-founded by Pavel Durov — who is currently in detention in Paris — in 2013.

More than 900 million people use Telegram, which boasts that it regulates content much less strictly than other messaging services. The app also works when the internet is operating at extremely slow speeds — like when governments attempt to choke usage.

Moreover, chat groups with up to 20,000 participants can be created — allowing for the quick mobilization of very large crowds of people.

The app also promises users an especially high level of anonymity. Though customers need to register a cellphone number when opening an account, they can submit a user name that can be used without allowing other chat group members to see that number. All of these functions make Telegram especially interesting to certain groups.

Fake news, propaganda and extremism

Opposition groups living under authoritarian regimes are not the only ones interested, however. Telegram also became a go-to platform for COVID-19 deniers in 2020.

After Parler — a platform largely favored by rightwing extremists and radical populists spreading far-right content — was temporarily shut down, Telegram became their new platform of preference, with numerous fake news and disinformation campaigns popping up on it. 

Telegram also attracts cyber criminals — Pavel Durov is accused, among other things, of allowing organized crime to flourish on his platform, not hindering the distribution of child pornography, and covering up crimes.

Durov's arrest led to a truly strange situation in which the Kremlin — which maintains numerous Telegram channels — is complaining just as loudly as high-ranking Russian opposition leaders. Georgia Alburov, a longtime associate of murdered Russian activist and Kremlin-critic Alexey Navalny, went so far as to say Durov's arrest represented a, "heavy blow to freedom of speech."

Serious security vulnerabilities

Yet the platform is not nearly as secure and anonymous as most users think — quite the opposite.

"You can talk to anyone you want within security circles and every one will tell you that Telegram is desperately lagging behind other platforms when it comes to content confidentiality," says Jürgen Schmidt, who heads the German IT news site heise online.

Unlike messaging services such as WhatsApp or Signal, content on Telegram is not encrypted end-to-end, that is along the entire path between one user's phone and another's.

"Telegram is a little unclear sometimes in communicating that," as Schmidt told DW. "They talk about encrypting all messages but they only mean encrypted on the path between the device and the server. Once they are on the server they are decrypted in plain text form."

'A privacy nightmare'

Although it is in fact possible to change settings to enable end-to-end data encryption, it isn't very easy — it also does not work for every type of chat.

"Principally, that means everything that is written on the app is stored on Telegram's servers, where Durov and his team have full access," said Schmidt, who described the app as a "privacy nightmare" in one of his articles.

It is not known, however, where those servers are actually located — therefore it is also unknown just who has access to the information stored on them. Telegram has not made the location of its servers public.

One step ahead of the law?

But why is Telegram so popular with so many anti-authoritarian protest movements? 

"There's no technical explanation," says Schmidt, who suggests a different motivation: "Unlike most other messaging services, Telegram does not have a US background — where many still think that 'evil' NSA operatives are involved."

Instead, the company is run by a Russian "who also gained credibility by leaving the country in order to avoid pressure from the regime there."

Constantly moving company headquarters

Peculiar as well is the fact that Durov never seems to keep his company in one place for very long. After leaving Russia he first moved Telegram to Berlin, then London and Singapore before settling in Dubai.

"Of course," says tech expert Schmidt, "one can speculate that he is moving to avoid law enforcement. To date, Telegram's Dubai address has been looked on favorably by platform users, giving Durov more credibility because he can no longer be easily pursued by German or US officials."

That, too, says Schmidt, has serious consequences for users. "They have no way to gain recourse with Telegram."

The online platform was designed with that fact in mind. "You could see that positively if you were being targeted by criminal prosecutors for instance, but it would have drawbacks for someone who has fallen prey to online fraudsters."

The IT expert's final call: "Personally, I would cut a wide berth around Telegram when it comes to anything remotely confidential."

This article was translated from German by Jon Shelton