Some 25 million users have registered on the Telegram messaging platform in the last 72 hours, its founder, the Russian Pavel Durov, said on Tuesday, in reaction to the announcement of its competitor WhatsApp that will share more data with its parent company, Facebook.
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“During the first week of January, Telegram surpassed 500 million monthly active users. After that, it continued to grow: 25 million new users arrived at Telegram in the last 72 hours“Durov said on his network channel.
“This is a significant increase over last year,” he continued, adding that Telegram had already had sudden waves of enrollment during its “seven years of experience in protecting the privacy of its users.” but, “this time it’s different.”
(You may be interested in: Telegram’s mockery of WhatsApp for its new privacy policy)
“People no longer exchange their privacy for free services. They no longer want to be taken hostage by technology monopolies,” the 36-year-old billionaire added.
Telegram was launched in 2013.
Not to mention its competition, it refers to WhatsApp, under fire from criticism since last Thursday after having asked its two billion subscribers to accept new terms of use.
Those users who reject them will not be able to access their accounts from February 8. The group thus seeks to monetize its platform by allowing advertisers to contact their customers via WhatsApp, and even sell their products directly, as is already the case in India.
(Read also: What changes with WhatsApp’s new privacy policies?)
This announcement also had implications for another messaging application, Signal, which since last week is on the list of most downloaded on the Apple Store and Google Play platforms in various countries.
Founded in 2013 by brothers Pavel and Nikolai Durov, creators before the popular Russian social network VKontakte, Telegram says security is its priority and generally refuses to cooperate with the authorities, which has led to attempts to blockade it in some countries. , all in Russia.
You may also be interested in:
– Signal, the messaging app recommended by Elon Musk and used by Snowden
– WhatsApp responded to criticism for policy change
– Parler, the social network used by Trump supporters
AFP