[liberationtech] Pro-Democracy Activists Run into Telegram Issue

[Yosem Companys]

Here's a follow-up email with additional details/questions:

Nowadays, Telegram is the main channel for us to coordinate and hold
> pro-democracy rallies and protests. We like Telegram because it provides
> private messaging. We don't know how, but the regime appears to be hacking
> into, censoring, and filtering Telegram. To circumvent the censors, we use
> a variety of proxies and VPNs. The regime even created a fake "approved,
> fast, sanitized, and safe version" of Telegram that tricked some of our
> supporters to moved to it. Beyond that, when our supporters click on the
> URLs of our sites on Telegram, they're unable to access them. Is there
> anything else we can do beyond telling our supporters not to use fake
> versions of Telegram? Are there more secure social media apps than Telegram
> that the regime won't be able to hack, filter, and censor? For example,
> would Wickr be any better?


On Sat, Dec 29, 2018 at 10:43 PM Yosem Companys <ycompanys at gmail.com> wrote:

> A pro-democracy activist would like me to inform you of the following:
>
> Telegram is supposed to be encrypted. Yet the regime appears capable of
>> attacking the privacy of our group members, disrupting the ability of our
>> members to access news or communicate with each other. For example, one of
>> our largest Telegram news groups recently experienced a dramatic decrease
>> in membership. It was almost as though members had “left” the group en
>> masse overnight. When we contacted some of the members outside Telegram, we
>> were told that they could no longer find our news group when they searched
>> for it. Such disruptions are undermining our ability to engage in effective
>> collective action.
>
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Thanks,
> Yosem
>
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