Talk:Telegram

Consumer impact summary Almost feel like Telegram advertisement

User privacy:

First paragraph: it's just what telegram has claimed in their website. Moderate can mean that they log user IPs!!! now we know that telegram share data with authorities. and also that it's not end to end encrypted so potentially all of users' content can be shared with them. while most messaging apps are E2EE.

Second paragraph: nothing that concerns privacy! except that third party apps can abuse users. As they have. which is not fair to mention them here as all other apps also can have malicious third party apps.

Third paragraph: The only notable paragraph here! it states that telegram is not E2EE by default. which should be taken seriously.

I don't like to remove the text people prior to me have entered here so here's my suggestion for replacement:

It is confirmed that telegram shares user data with authorities (upon request?). by default telegram is cloud base messenger so it collects all the chat's and their content with metadata. They use their in-house protocol for secret messages which is opensource and can goes under scrutiny by everybody.

Hellfinder (talk) 21:44, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

I remember editing the article's promotional tone down a bit the first time I found it, but quite a bit of it is still there, yeah.

Rather than parroting their marketing claims at the minimum I think it would be appropriate to qualify these as marketing claims, e. g. replacing "Telegram does not sell user data" with "Telegram claims to not sell user data". Feel free to start! D-side (talk) 22:05, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

User Privacy impact! (2026-09-08)

Thanks @D-side for toning down.

I have some concerns though:

(IMHO) The justification paragraph is excessive. it doesn't change the privacy impact! (I can argue that it's dishonest and hides their ulterior motive, as many conveniences they discuss can be still resolved. As an example signal and element both offer encrypted backup.)

The intention of paragraphs is buried under technical words! specially it's under "consumer impact summary". I'm okay with having the same paragraph under another section. Consider a teenager reading the first paragraph! what they should know is that "Telegram (almost always) invades their privacy" so they should not use it.

I used the word "invade" intentionally. it's a heavy word and I rather change it. but I didn't find any other word that bears a negative connotation with right amount. and it's a negative thing that telegram is cloud base by default.

If Telegram were honest, they would have:

1. made encrypted message the default.
2. solved the feature parity between cloud base and E2EE as much as possible.

The fact that they are saying E2EE is not convenient, speak volumes that most people don't use it. Effectively they have gathered huge amount of data and personal chats which rivals Facebook data collection. And If they go rouge or got hacked, it puts all the users under danger! I believe it should be stated here.

So @D-side , Please remove the third paragraph! and If you came up with better wording please change the first two paragraph too. Thanks.

Hellfinder (talk) 13:28, 8 September 2026 (UTC)

I assume you haven't seen the comment after the third paragraph, since (I think) it's only visible in the editor, but that that third paragraph needs to be balanced by some good outside coverage of critisism towards Telegram, I just don't have a source on hand for this. But I did not see this as sufficient justification to remove their explanation of the problem.

So that third paragraph is half-baked at this time. I mentioned Matrix/Element (I use Matrix myself, with my own server even, I have hands-on xp) in one of my drafts as an example of sync between devices done right, but I couldn't put this without it sounding like an ad for a competitor, which would be a bad look for the wiki.

Given I've toned down two edits of yours by now I suspect we have very different ideas for what the intended writing style for this wiki is. I don't think it needs to tell you what to think or do (e. g. what messenger to use), but instead provide information upstream from that (what kind of danger it puts you in and/or how, the decision is still up to you). Because aggressive dissuasion looks dishonest and reads like an opinion piece rather than a source of aggregated information on consumer rights. I prefer to leave as much agency to the reader as I'd prefer to have myself. That's my standard.

I'll see if I can simplify the explanation of content/metadata encryption; it does seem to have gotten unreasonably long. This is because I understand how it works and try my best to avoid inaccuracies, which makes explanations longer. Say, the first paragraph in my eyes is already, damning enough ("messages […] are readable to the service in their entirety"), but even that "[…]" I had to use there probably in the very least calls for some reordering to bring the important parts together. D-side (talk) 17:40, 8 September 2026 (UTC)

P.1: You are right. I haven't seen your comment because it wasn't visible to me. Still, The paragraph doesn't say anything about the privacy impacting users. (regardless of excuses or technicality reasons.)

p.2: I agree with you!

p.3: I like your standards. let me simplify it: The text should inform readers of dangers using telegram may entail them. hope you are okay with this! Sorry if my writing sounded too aggressive.

p.4: (IMHO) That's a problem. technical people would have already known this! like part 3. We should stay factual, alert the privacy concerns and avoid sounding aggressive or impose our opinion.

I have a recommendation: let's move all three paragraph into a subsection name "cloud-chat vs secret-chat". Under privacy impact summery let's just say: "By default, Telegram collect and store all messages on their servers. This means your entire history of your conversation can be read by Telegram or be revealed in case of data breach" I believe this sentence is accurate and alert average users with right tone! Don't you agree? Hellfinder (talk) 21:43, 8 September 2026 (UTC)

I can already see a retort to this "but it's encrypted" and it's probably even technically true, if meaningless (it is indeed very likely encrypted at rest, but that's only protection from forcible drive seizure, not disclosure at Telegram's discretion).

I'd drop the first sentence (the specifics of this process don't matter much if the subject is consumer impact) and rewrite the second to stand on its own, like "Telegram has access to complete history of all chats on its platform except secret chats. This allows Telegram to disclose it in response to outside requests, and a data breach of its infrastructure would provide the same capability to the attacker."

Something to that effect. It omits the secret chat metadata considerations entirely, but it's a more advanced subject that can probably live in its own section. D-side (talk) 23:49, 8 September 2026 (UTC)

Thank you, we're so close to an agreement, please bear with me! You're right. I prefer your sentence with some edits.

"Telegram has access to complete history of all chats on its platform except secret chats.": I would avoid the word "secret chat". it's a telegram jargon. I thought to replace it with E2EE, but we again fall into too much technicalities. let's edit the first sentence with "By default, Telegram has access to complete history of chats on its platform". 1. I added the "default" word which implicitly informs users that they may change this behavior. 2. I removed the word "All" from "all chats" as I removed the "except secret chats".

"This allows Telegram to disclose it in response to outside requests, and a data breach of its infrastructure would provide the same capability to the attacker.": I'm okay with this one, however we have a line in privacy impact summary stating that they share information with authorities so we may not repeat ourselves again here. Also one important thing, telegram itself can be a source of danger. let's edit this into "This allows Telegram to read chat history, and a data breach of its infrastructure would provide the same capability to the attacker."

So in the ended we'll have: "By default, Telegram has access to complete history of chats on its platform. This allows Telegram to read chat history, and a data breach of its infrastructure would provide the same capability to the attacker." Hellfinder (talk) 10:04, 9 September 2026 (UTC)

I'd keep "except secret chats" as that's short enough and appears to be the only explicitly declared exception, which would make it significantly more specific than the extremely vague "by default"; it is indeed Telegram-specific term, but I think quotes are enough to denote this, e. g. «except "secret chats"». The quotes look a little demeaning, as if implying they're not really that, but to an extent I'm fine with. D-side (talk) 11:43, 9 September 2026 (UTC)

Ok, I'll change the page now, I'll use parentheses as it's less demeaning. Hellfinder (talk) 11:50, 9 September 2026 (UTC)

Done. Hope you are okay with this. Hellfinder (talk) 12:04, 9 September 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, LGTM. Made a couple formatting changes:

• Added the quotes, however demeaning they are, parentheses don't serve the purpose of indicating "secret chats" as platform-specific term
• Relative links to sections within the same article start with #, everything before it is safe to remove, a full URL renders like an external link, which it is not

D-side (talk) 12:37, 9 September 2026 (UTC)