Telegram co-founder Pável Dúrov has revealed why there is a leak from WhatsApp users to his instant messaging application, according to a statement released on his official Telegram channel this Friday, highlighting RT.
“I hear that Facebook has a whole department dedicated to figuring out why Telegram is so popular. Imagine that dozens of employees are working on it full-time, ”the text reads. “I’m happy to save Facebook tens of millions of dollars and give away our secret for free: respect your users,” he added.
In this sense, the Russian entrepreneur points out that millions of people are outraged after the announcement of WhatsApp, which reported that it will start sharing data with Facebook, a platform to which it has belonged since 2014, from February 8.
WhatsApp’s new usage policy has sparked controversy and privacy concerns as the technology giant will have access to contacts, information about mobile devices and users’ location, among other things.
Dúrov assures us that “it is not surprising that WhatsApp users’ flight to Telegram has accelerated,” arguing that this situation has been going on for years. “Telegram has become a big deal for the Facebook company,” he says.
The Telegram co-founder states that, faced with this inability to compete with his application in terms of quality and privacy, these companies appear to have opted for ‘covert marketing’, citing as an example that several paid bots have recently biased have added information in the Wikipedia article dedicated to WhatsApp.
It also highlights that they have detected bots spreading inaccurate information about their application on social networks, such as claiming that Telegram is a Russian company, that it does not use open source, or that it is not encrypted.
“Unlike Facebook, Telegram doesn’t spend money, let alone billions of dollars, on” marketing, “Durov insists. We believe people are smart enough to choose what’s best for them and, judging by the 500 million people who use Telegram, this belief is justified, ”he concludes.