WhatsApp Head Calls out Telegram on Privacy Concerns
When it comes to the consumer tech industry, rivalries are nothing new – iOS vs Android, Apple vs Microsoft, Nintendo vs Sony, the list goes on. More recently however, it seems that things are heating up between messaging platforms WhatsApp and Telegram.
Telegram is not end-to-end encrypted by default and offers no e2ee for groups. From the article: “Telegram has the capacity to share nearly any confidential information a government requests”
— Will Cathcart (@wcathcart) February 10, 2023
More specifically, a series of Tweets from Will Cathcart, Head of WhatsApp at parent company Meta, states that Telegram offers no default end-to-end encryption, referencing an article from Wired highlighting Telegram’s “capacity to share nearly any confidential information a government requests.”
He mentioned several other supposed lapses on Telegram’s part, adding that it’s important for journalists and policy makers to understand the “truth of Telegram.” He states that Telegram is often given credit for operating as an “encrypted” app, but says that this is far from the truth. With all that said, it will certainly be interesting to see if and how Telegram and other concerned parties will respond to these statements, given the nature of their context.
In other WhatsApp news, the app has also made headlines lately with regards to file-sharing features. There are reports that it’s currently testing out methods to allow users to send photos in their original quality, meaning that what you took with your phone’s camera will be the same quality that is being sent to the other users. At the moment, sending original photos requires users to send it as a document which isn’t so obvious for some, with some compression involved.