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New Upcoming Telegram Premium Features

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Re: New Upcoming Telegram Premium Features

#12
post #9
post #4

> Changes in WhatsApp’s privacy policy had directed users to use Telegram. This is quite ironic. Telegram managed to sell itself as a more private Whatsapp while in reality it is WAY worse in this area. Amazing and sad.

Both are equally bad, for different reasons. As a user, one might be more worried of having their identity tied to their Facebook account (and therefore advertising/tracking), than about their government spying on them. Having worked with people in totalitarian countries, it's surprising how much protesting people can do in plain sight. Until the regime decides they went too far, and it won't matter what proofs or ch…

signal and telegram are a no brainer when it comes to totalitarian regimes. i live in Kashmir which has historically and continues to hunt down dissidents with agility. i cannot imagine being tied to my "mobile number" when the government has that data by law, tying a telegram/signal account to it is a gone case by that point.

people who go with signal call it "better whatsapp without facebook tracking" but just like telegram, its Achilles heel is mobile number requirement. matrix has that from the start so its better in that respect. sure, matrix does not have "social graph" out of the box but in a "totalitarian regime", that is precisely what you want.

besides, you can set up your own matrix server, something whatsapp/telegram/signal simply cannot do so its 100% more secure in that sense

Re: New Upcoming Telegram Premium Features

#13
post #4

> Changes in WhatsApp’s privacy policy had directed users to use Telegram. This is quite ironic. Telegram managed to sell itself as a more private Whatsapp while in reality it is WAY worse in this area. Amazing and sad.

For people looking for privacy: Briar is where it's at. A bit clunky UI (e.g. inviting someone isn't easy) but otherwise really well built client, and top notch network protocol and cryptographic features.

[1] https://briarproject.org/

Re: New Upcoming Telegram Premium Features

#14

Voice to Text transcription is worth it in itself. I hate when people send me voice messages: it's slightly less effort for them in exchange for much more annoyance and wasted time for me.

Or: an option to turn off support for audio messages. Disabling the send audio message button.

Re: New Upcoming Telegram Premium Features

#15
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both are equally bad, for different reasons. As a user, one might be more worried of having their identity tied to their Facebook account (and therefore advertising/tracking), than about their government spying on them. Having worked with people in totalitarian countries, it's surprising how much protesting people can do in plain sight. Until the regime decides they went too far, and it won't matter what proofs or ch…

signal and telegram are a no brainer when it comes to totalitarian regimes. i live in Kashmir which has historically and continues to hunt down dissidents with agility. i cannot imagine being tied to my "mobile number" when the government has that data by law, tying a telegram/signal account to it is a gone case by that point. people who go with signal call it "better whatsapp without facebook tracking" but just like…

I think the bigger question is anti-spam in anonymous chatrooms, even with the mobile phone requirements spammers (in particular from Nigeria, why does this country have so many scammers in particular?) are everywhere and spamming all the time, I'm in 5 or so groups and every day 2-3 spam messages have to be deleted. There are millions of fake channels and I wouldn't be surprised if up to or over 10% of telegrams messages sent are spam/scams.

What does matrix do to prevent the tidal wave of spam hitting it?

Re: New Upcoming Telegram Premium Features

#16
post #4

> Changes in WhatsApp’s privacy policy had directed users to use Telegram. This is quite ironic. Telegram managed to sell itself as a more private Whatsapp while in reality it is WAY worse in this area. Amazing and sad.

This might kill that sentiment entirely if it turns out to be true and not a LARP: https://twitter.com/adyingnobody/status/1534021154674966529

Looks like fun times, nice.

Re: New Upcoming Telegram Premium Features

#17
post #4

> Changes in WhatsApp’s privacy policy had directed users to use Telegram. This is quite ironic. Telegram managed to sell itself as a more private Whatsapp while in reality it is WAY worse in this area. Amazing and sad.

How is it worse? Besides chats beung unencrypted by default

Re: New Upcoming Telegram Premium Features

#18
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

signal and telegram are a no brainer when it comes to totalitarian regimes. i live in Kashmir which has historically and continues to hunt down dissidents with agility. i cannot imagine being tied to my "mobile number" when the government has that data by law, tying a telegram/signal account to it is a gone case by that point. people who go with signal call it "better whatsapp without facebook tracking" but just like…

I think the bigger question is anti-spam in anonymous chatrooms, even with the mobile phone requirements spammers (in particular from Nigeria, why does this country have so many scammers in particular?) are everywhere and spamming all the time, I'm in 5 or so groups and every day 2-3 spam messages have to be deleted. There are millions of fake channels and I wouldn't be surprised if up to or over 10% of telegrams mes…

I would say it's the same question as "what does IRC do?" as the general design is the same - maybe a bit more friction signing up with Matrix than IRC but at the end of the road they operate on the same trust model. The Matrix team blogged about a spambot attack last year on this very question: https://matrix.org/blog/2021/06/30/security-update-synapse-1...

Side comment: because my mobile number was leaked (breached) by T-Mobile which included my name, I get way, way way more spam via it than anything else. Lots of political spam, 95% or greater from the right/repub end of the spectrum.

Edit, side comment #2: I ported my secondary Google Voice number out to Tello (a low cost MVNO in the US) with a SIM in a spare phone, and all the spam I was getting every day to that number simply stopped instantly. I'm a little amazed to be honest, it's very interesting.

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