In its own words, “Making profits will never be an end-goal for Telegram.” It has stated that it would turn to user donations or a freemium model to raise revenue if necessary. Funding thus far comes privately from Pavel Durov. Telegram does not sell ads, stating that the access to personal data gained by advertisers would go against its ethos. As well as sending messages, users can subscribe to ‘channels’, which allow creators to send messages to subscribers. Samsung took advantage of this, launching its short-lived Socializer Messenger in 2015.ĭevelopers are also invited to create bots and users can create sticker sets. Telegram uses an open API, and welcomes developers to create their own Telegram apps.

Belarus is the latest hotspot where Telegram has proven essential in 2020. We saw this in 2013 when surveillance fears were raised around Kakao Talk in South Korea, and again in 2019 during the Hong Kong protests against the Chinese government. Nonetheless, when users are looking for a secure service, Telegram seems to be where they defect. One-time login passwords conveyed by SMS have been intercepted by hackers in Iran, Russia, Brazil, and the German authorities.

It has, however, drawn criticism from security experts. Messages can also be set to self-destruct, akin to Snapchat. Users are able to have ‘secret chats’, which see messages stored on devices as opposed to the cloud.

Telegram messaging service