to be fair, the Russian government tried but failed to get control over Telegram.
Telegram was launched in 2013 by the brothers Nikolai and Pavel Durov. Previously, the pair founded the Russian social network VK, which they left in 2014, saying it had been taken over by the government. Pavel sold his remaining stake in VK and left Russia after resisting government pressure.
Telegram is registered as a company in the British Virgin Islands and an LLC in Dubai.
I’ve used it and tried to see how to secure it within a company’s security apparatus (and it failed so we block it within the company’s firewalls).
It is a secure service and imho it is not Russian owned.
However, as a secure service it also means no govt can hack in - not the Russians, not the Chinese, not any American agency.
This is good AND bad — there are a lot of murky dark stuff out there as the article points out - it IS there.
This is, as always a question of security v/s individual independence.
So there was no "murky dark stuff out there" before the Interwebs?
Privacy is only a problem for crypto-fascists.
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." --Ben Franklin
Russia uses Tik-Tok and Telegram *network traffic* info to track targets.
Ukraine learned the hard way, re Tik-Tok usage by frontline troops.
Telegram remains a problem for Ukraine, behind the lines.