The Great Migration
Previous months were tough for Whatsapp. In the aftermath, Telegram continues to add extra features focused on privacy, making itself more appealing to increasingly privacy sensitive users.
On 28 January, Telegram added data portability to its feature pack, for both individual chats and groups. According to its blog, users can migrate data from WhatsApp, Line, and KakaoTalk (both are South Korean apps).
Telegram also has the feature of total deletion, leaving no trace on both sides of the chat while deleting a text. On 28 January update, secret chats (end-to-end encrypted chats of Telegram), created groups, and call history can also be deleted without a trace for both sides.
This mass migration probably also brought a lot of attention to the app, naturally. So they also added a reporting function for the users to report on fake channels or groups.
We all know a lot of people migrated, but most of them installed these apps for the sole reason of their friends doing the same. I don’t think there’s a huge awareness spike on privacy for leaving WhatsApp. But a start is a start and these boosted apps can help increase the awareness level of these common folk more than we privacy professionals can do.
According to Telegram, over 100 million users joined the chat app in January 2021.
Time will tell.
