Founded in 2013, Telegram is still gaining momentum. The popularity of the messenger is mainly attributed to its main feature – channels. Pavel Durov's brainchild can serve three functions at once: being a tool for corporate communication, providing platforms for public promotion campaigns and media activity. Research by the Rating sociological group shows that the share of Ukrainians receiving socio-political news from groups and channels in messengers has increased from 11% to 41% in just a year during the war. However, the use of messengers with a ‘russian trace’ – especially during the war – carries certain risks.
However, Telegram recently got a significant competitor. In early June, Meta announced "a tool for news tracking" – WhatsApp Channels. Initially, the feature was available in Colombia and Singapore, and in the coming months, they planned to launch channels in other countries. On July 24th, Mykhailo Fedorov, the Minister of Digital Transformation, announced that Ukraine is among the first 9 countries where Meta is launching WhatsApp Channels. Mind explains why this is an alternative to Telegram. What are the advantages and risks involved?
What's the alternative? WhatsApp Channels are nearly analogous to Telegram channels. Administrators can publish content: messages, photos, videos, and polls, while users can view it. To select and subscribe to channels, the messenger has created a catalogue of channels with news from local government bodies, sports content, hobbies, and more. Creators can choose who is allowed to follow the channel and whether it can be found at all. The functionality is currently very similar to what Telegram offers. As a result, WhatsApp has a good chance of attracting part of Telegram's audience.
Where to find this feature? In the "Updates" tab (formerly the "Status" tab). Channels with a green checkmark next to their name are recognised as WhatsApp verified. However, some users in Ukraine currently cannot access WhatsApp Channels on either their smartphones or computers.
Why does one search for alternatives when there's a familiar Telegram? Earlier, Mind explained that this messenger could be transmitting user data to the security services of the occupying country. So far, Telegram founder Durov has not been 'caught' cooperating with the fsb (federal security service of the russian federation). However, for several years now, numerous indirect pieces of evidence have surfaced in the media that could indicate Durov's involvement and vulnerabilities in Telegram. Also, a lot of questions remain unanswered. Where does the company get hundreds of millions of dollars annually to support servers, the team, the main office in the UAE, and so on? Does the subscription fee of 1 million TG Premium users and advertising revenue cover these expenses? How did the company sustain itself until 2021 (only then did it start monetising)? Who paid off Durov's debts after the 'successful launch' of the cryptocurrency Ton? Why does Telegram still operate in russia, China, and Iran, whose authorities periodically seem to attempt to ban this messenger?
How does Meta plan to ensure privacy? "We're aspiring to build the most private broadcast service available. This starts by protecting the personal information of both admins and followers," the company says. The phone number and profile photo of the administrator will not be visible to subscribers, and user numbers will be hidden from everyone on the channel, including administrators. Other contacts won't be able to see which channels you have subscribed to.
"Another way to protect confidentiality is the deletion of channel posts after a certain period, similar to how it's done with messages," Meta points out. History will only be stored on servers for up to 30 days, and later on, the messaging service allows subscribers to delete it even earlier.
Administrators will have the ability to block screen captures and message forwarding. They will have control over who can follow their channels and whether they want their channels to be displayed in the catalogue.
What could go wrong? Meta Corporation has a history of periodically banning posts of Ukrainians. Facebook and Instagram algorithms have not only blocked 'hate speech' towards russians, but also images of their military crimes and hashtags discussing these crimes.
In the newly launched Threads, there are similarly strict 'requirements' as in other Meta services, leading to bans of Ukrainians one after another. Will another Meta creation ruthlessly remove posts from Ukrainian channels? We will soon find out when Ukrainians gain full access and test the new tool for this 'bug' existence.
Continuation of the experiment. In addition to the trending Threads, which has already lost its ratings, Meta continues to experiment with tools. Before channels appeared on WhatsApp, the corporation actively tested this feature on Instagram. The functionalities are the same: support for text, images, polls, and reactions. Just a week after WhatsApp announced the addition of channels to their messenger, Instagram (which had announced a similar update back in February) started rolling out channels worldwide.