While it is in the midst of a judicial imbroglio and is at risk of being banned in Brazil, Telegram is also the application that gained the most users in the last year in the world, according to a survey of companies in the field. Although the siege of the tool began to close in 2021, the messenger had been drawing attention for quite some time.
WhatsApp’s main competitor, Telegram has attracted users over its nearly nine years of existence with its unlimited cloud storage, do-it-all bots and promise to give users more privacy.
The darling app of Bolsonaristas became a target of the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) and is in the crosshairs of at least two investigations in other bodies. With little moderation of the content in circulation, the network has no representatives in Brazil and does not respond to contact attempts made by Brazilian authorities.
Check out ten things you need to know about Telegram, the app that has caused the judiciary a headache.
1. Created by the ‘Zuckerberg of Russia’ and vetoed in the country of origin
Launched in 2013, Telegram was founded by Russian brothers Nikolai and Pavel Durov. The latter was already known as “Russia’s Mark Zuckerberg”, for having created VKontakte, the largest social network in his country.
Pavel funded the new app, while Nikolai worked on developing the protocol on which the messenger is based. The tool first arrived on the iOS system in August 2013.
The team behind the network had to leave Russia, according to Telegram’s official website, “due to local IT regulations [tecnologia da informação]”. The app was banned in the country of origin after fighting a battle against the Russian government, which demanded the release of user data.
At the time, the FSB, the Russian secret service, pointed to the encryption of Telegram as an obstacle to the monitoring of terrorists in the country. An example of this was the coordination of the attack on the Saint Petersburg subway, in 2017, made from the app.
Far from the restrictions of the Kremlin, the company tried to establish headquarters in Berlin, London and Singapore, until settling in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. “We are happy in Dubai at the moment, but we are ready to move again if local regulations change,” says Telegram on its website.
2. Synchronized messages
Telegram is a messenger that syncs conversations across all devices where the user is logged in. It allows you to send messages, photos, videos and files of any extension (.jpg, .png, etc.), in addition to being able to create groups of up to 200,000 people or channels without limits of members to transmit information.
Contacts can be found in the app through the list already saved on the device or by searching by username. Following the model of the main messengers, the tool also uses dashes to signal read messages and can display the “last seen” of users.
3. User growth
As shown by leafin 2018, only 15% of cell phones in Brazil had Telegram installed, a number that grew to 45% in 2021. The messenger is the application that gained the most users last year in the world, according to the survey of the Top Breakout Chart, by App Annie.
4. Telegram X WhatsApp
Trying to differentiate Telegram from WhatsApp, its main competitor, can yield a separate list. THE leaf have already done this exercise, the result of which can be checked by clicking on this link. In summary, the main differences are in file storage and privacy policies.
While WhatsApp only displays files saved on the device it is installed on, Telegram stores the content in the cloud with continuous synchronization. That’s why the Russian app allows users to share items up to 2 gigabytes, while Zuckerberg’s messenger is limited to 16 megabytes via mobile and 64 megabytes via desktop.
As for the privacy policy, Telegram does not collect personal data from users and does not display ads, unlike WhatsApp.
5. Bots for every taste
The Durov brothers’ tool also allows developers to create small programs capable of performing the most diverse functions through the messenger. They are called bots, a word that derives from “robot” —”robot”, in English.
Through these little programs, users can register reminders, download videos posted on Instagram Stories, translate sentences into any language, convert files, shorten a URL and even transcribe that giant audio message that you don’t have the slightest patience to listen to.
For now, there is no native bot store on Telegram, but there are good tips scattered around the internet. To find them, simply search by name in the application’s search box.
6. Secret chats and self-destructive messages
Another attractive feature of Telegram is secret chats. Unlike other conversations, they are not stored in the cloud and can only be accessed from the source device.
This function does not allow forwarding messages. When items in a chat are deleted on one side of the conversation, the app on the other side will also be prompted to delete them.
In addition, messages and files exchanged in a secret chat can be programmed to self-destruct within a certain period after being opened by the recipient.
7. Competition to crack cryptography
Anyone who can prove that it is possible to decrypt Telegram’s encryption and have access to third-party messages wins US$ 300,000 – around R$ 1.57 million at the current price. It is a competition held by the team responsible for the application since 2014.
Another contest offers rewards ranging from $100 to $100,000 or more to anyone who makes comments about Telegram’s security that result in a code or configuration change. In this case, the premium amount depends on the severity of the problem.
Alerts can be made by anyone via email sent to [email protected]. The whistleblower, however, loses the right to the prize if the flaws are made public before Telegram corrects them.
8. But what about Vaza Jato?
End-to-end encryption is not Telegram’s standard definition. This means conversations can be read and easily retrieved by the app unless the user configures the tool to protect themselves.
It was the absence of this configuration that made the case of Vaza Jato possible, a series of reports produced based on messages exchanged in the app by authorities of Operação Lava Jato. The conversations were obtained by The Intercept Brasil in 2019, after people linked to the investigation were hacked.
9. Judicial imbroglio and inaccessible representatives
With the popularization of Telegram, the judiciary was faced with an obstacle: the network does not have legal representatives in Brazil and simply ignored the attempts to contact Brazilian authorities over the last few years.
This difficulty makes the TSE not rule out the possibility of determining the blocking of Telegram in the country. The court’s concerns are due to the poor moderation and viral-friendly structure that the app offers, a perfect combo for the mass dissemination of disinformation.
The president of the court, Minister LuÃs Roberto Barroso, said in a statement in January that he “understands that no relevant actor in the 2022 electoral process can operate in Brazil without adequate legal representation, responsible for complying with national legislation and judicial decisions.” .”
According to the same note, the TSE “has already entered into partnerships with almost all the main technological platforms and it is not desirable that there are exceptions”. For now, emails from Barroso to Durov remain unanswered.
In addition to being the target of the TSE, Telegram is in the crosshairs of at least two investigations, one at the Federal Police and another at the MPF (Federal Public Ministry).
10. Bolsonaristas’ favorite app
Due to the little regulation of the content that circulates on the app, Telegram has become one of the darling communication tools of President Jair Bolsonaro (PL). Launched in early 2021, his channel on the network surpassed 1 million subscribers in October of the same year.
Candidate for reelection, Bolsonaro leads with advantage in the use of the app as a tool for communication with supporters. Meanwhile, the leader in polls of voting intentions for the elections, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), only created a channel on the network in June 2021, which has just over 47,000 subscribers.
In January of this year, Bolsonaro called the siege of Telegram cowardice. “What they are trying to do with Brazil is cowardly.” While not directly citing the TSE’s actions against the app, the president told supporters that he is “dealing” with it.
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