I am seeing a lot of new drama about Telegram and a new contender Signal... But what is the advantage of yet another new messaging app, which after installing just seems completely empty? We had more secure ways of communicating when needed already that are more widely used? I am not really sure why we need this one or what Telegram did this time.
@DarkWolf Haven't heard of it before, many things exist for years but out of all the more established things why now this 'new' one?
Telegram is insecure, I know that. Nothing there is encrypted except secret chats dubiously. But we all know that and it's only for furry shits.
@DarkWolf Yeah, I also don't want any Facebook stuff... I do have WhatsApp because you simply can't avoid it outside of the furry world.
Ironically WhatsApp has encryption, but at the same time I suspect Meta must be able to read it all somehow. It probably can't be trusted much either if you really care about it.
@maruno@bark.lgbt
The big thing Telegram did this time was post a few neo-nazi codes in an ad (then put new ones in the replacement ad).
On a semi-related note, a Russian oligarch recently started an attack campaign against Signal. That got Tucker Carlson to start lying about it. White supremacist Christopher Rufo endorsed Telegram. Then, eager to appeal to his base, Elon Musk gave it an endorsement full of technical nonsense he clearly didn't understand.
So, mostly it's about recognizing that Telegram is aligning itself with a specific faction in the culture war.
@o76923 I am not sure if FUD by random people about their favourite chat app really should be something I take into consideration, but okay this is how the internet goes.
Other than that we already knew longer they have Russian roots, right? None of that really surprises me if this is an extension of all that.
@maruno Signal really isn't new, and I'm not sure what "more secure ways of communicating" you're referencing. When I think of secure messaging, I think of Signal and Matrix, and I think of them on pretty equal footing.
The new call to leave is probably because one of their recent announcements had Nazi dogwhistles in it. 1391, the year of an antisemetic massacre, and 1488, a reference to a white supremacist slogan and a white supremacist treatise associated with (defunct) terror organization The Order.
The announcement had one of those numbers, people noticed, it changed to the other one, people noticed again, and after that change, "unfortunate RNG" was no longer believable.
References for the meaning of the dogwhistles:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteen_Words
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_1391
@dipolecat Mostly WhatsApp and directed connectivity like SMS for personal social sphere and contained server instances like Slack, Jabber or IRC in a professional setting. I have not seen much else being used at some scale.
I mostly dismiss these announcements as spam, but if the bar really turned into a nazi bar it is time to look at a new bar. Just haven't noticed anything but a fluffy bubble and some nerds on telegram.
@miifox For the most part the network effect is the biggest player, honestly it is what forced me to use Telegram to begin with. Everybody had left IRC and Skype to this phkne app.
And Telegram has been doing good on the features our community needs and I don't really see that being challenged enough to warrant people moving based on that. Definitely not if it's not on parity yet.