Mother Jones: How Telegram Became the Center of the Internet. ” In recent years, the messaging app and digital platform has recurringly become the place for the rawest, most direct coverage of massive international crises, first with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and now with Hamas’s October 7 attack and Israel’s subsequent month-long massacre of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza.”
WIRED: Telegram’s Bans on Extremist Channels Aren’t Really Bans. “A WIRED investigation reveals that rather than ban or delete Hamas channels or those run by right-wing extremist groups, Telegram is hiding them from the users of the two major app stores, but they are still there. Some of the content from restricted channels is being shared broadly in unrestricted ones—despite Telegram’s mechanisms for stopping the sharing of such content.”
TechCrunch: Telegram CEO, a criticised but cited source of Hamas videos, says app will continue to host ‘war-related content’. “As social platforms like X (formerly Twitter), Meta and TikTok face off with regulators and the theater of public opinion for how they are handling incendiary and graphic content, disinformation, writing and other media related to Hamas and Israel, Pavel Durov, the CEO of Telegram, has controversially come out to defend how his messaging app is not taking down some of the more sensitive war-related coverage that can be found there, claiming that it can prove to be an important channel for information.”
Washington Post: Graphic war videos go viral, testing social media’s rules. “In deciding what posts to take down during a war, social media companies have to weigh their interest in shielding users from violent, hateful and misleading content against the goals of allowing free expression, including newsworthy material and potential evidence of war crimes, said Evelyn Douek, an assistant professor at Stanford Law School. And they often have to make those calls under time pressure, without full information.” The link is to a gift article so you should be able to read it without a paywall.
Hacker News: Millions Infected by Spyware Hidden in Fake Telegram Apps on Google Play. “Spyware masquerading as modified versions of Telegram have been spotted in the Google Play Store that’s designed to harvest sensitive information from compromised Android devices. According to Kaspersky security researcher Igor Golovin, the apps come with nefarious features to capture and exfiltrate names, user IDs, contacts, phone numbers, and chat messages to an actor-controlled server.”
CNBC: Amazon employees leak secret info that marketplace sellers can buy on Telegram. “For the millions of sellers who make up the booming Amazon marketplace, few things are as perpetually concerning as the threat of getting suspended for alleged wrongdoing and watching business evaporate overnight. Helping third-party sellers recover their accounts has turned into a large and lucrative enterprise, because the only way the merchants can get back up and running is to admit guilt and correct the issue or show sufficient evidence that they did nothing wrong. The process is often costly, lengthy and fraught with challenges. Enter the illicit broker.”
The Verge: Telegram has become a window into war. “The messaging app has become a key channel for news about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But the government’s relationship with it is complicated.”
Pew (PEW PEW PEW!): On alternative social media sites, many prominent accounts seek financial support from audiences. “About a quarter (23%) of the prominent accounts on the seven alternative social media sites studied sought financial support from their audiences in June 2022, according to the analysis. The Center examined 1,400 prominent accounts – selected from those with large numbers of followers – on BitChute, Gab, Gettr, Parler, Rumble, Telegram and Truth Social, many of which position themselves as alternatives to more established social media sites.”
Chicago Tribune: TikTok, Twitter fare only slightly better than fringe platforms favored by far right in Wiesenthal Center study of social media. “A report from the Simon Wiesenthal Center scoring social media platforms based on the proliferation of hate speech found that mainstream sites like TikTok and Twitter fared only slightly better than much smaller platforms like Telegram favored by far-right groups.”
Chicago Sun-Times: Feds’ child porn sweep on Telegram app leads to arrest of Chicago man, more than a dozen others. “The work of Homeland Security Investigations in Arizona, dubbed Operation Swipe Left, led to Norris ‘Nick’ Stauffer. It also resulted in criminal charges against more than a dozen people elsewhere — including at least two with political ties — amid allegations of livestreamed abuse, kidnapping threats and the production and distribution of child pornography.”
Engadget: Telegram’s latest update adds real-time message translation. “With its first update of 2023, Telegram is making it easier to communicate with people who might speak a different language than you. The next time someone messages you in a language other than your default language, you’ll see a translate bar at the top of the interface. Tap it to translate their message in real time.”
BGR: Telegram update lets you blur sensitive info in photos and videos. “Popular chat app Telegram recently got a new update that introduced several interesting features. One is the ability to blur elements of an image or video when sharing it on Telegram. The feature will let people conceal sensitive details when sharing content on Telegram. You can even use it to hide away photobombers.”
CoinDesk: Telegram CEO Durov Plans to Build Crypto Wallets, Decentralized Exchange. “Bolstered by Fragment’s strong sales, [Pavel] Durov is setting Telegram on a course for deeper crypto buildouts. He said the company will build a decentralized exchange and non-custodial wallets that could reach millions of users. Telegram is already a go-to messaging app for many crypto traders, giving it a captive audience from the start.”
New York Magazine: Where Have the FTX Depositors Gone to Panic? Distraught users — and scammers — are flooding Telegram.. “In the good times, FTX’s official presence on Telegram helped the company cultivate a reputation for responsive customer service. When things were falling apart at FTX, they fell apart here, too, as thousands of panicked users flooded its support channels.”
Pew (PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW!): The Role of Alternative Social Media in the News and Information Environment. “These newer sites have created a small but satisfied community of news consumers, many of whom say one of the major reasons they are there is to stay informed about current events, according to a new Pew Research Center study. The study included a survey of U.S. adults along with an audit of seven alternative social media sites – BitChute, Gab, Gettr, Parler, Rumble, Telegram and Truth Social – and a detailed analysis of prominent accounts and content across them.”
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