Millions of people flock to Telegram and Signal as fear grows over the big technology

“Don’t trust Big tech,” read a message on a group of Proud Boys on Parler. “We will need to find a safer space.”

On Signal, a Florida-based militia group said on Monday that it was hosting its chats in small, city-to-city groups limited to a few dozen per group, according to reports. The New York Times reported. They warn each other not to let anyone they know personally, to avoid law enforcement officials spying on their chats.

The number of users coming to Telegram, based in Dubai and Signal, based in Silicon Valley, far exceeds just in the US. Mr. Durov said that 94% of Telegram’s 25 million new users are from Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa.

Most of Signal’s new user adoption comes from outside the US. As of Wednesday, the company said it was the number 1 app in 70 countries on iOS devices and 45 countries on Android devices, of which India is one of the largest regions of new user growth. For both Signal and Telegram, the new installs are coming from users in Indonesia, Mexico, Brazil and dozens of other countries, data from Apptopia shows.

Fear of WhatsApp’s privacy policies fueled the popularity of Telegram and Signal. While there’s no meaningful change to the way WhatsApp treats user data, people immediately explained the app’s security message last week meaning it hacked into all of them. types of personal information – like personal chat logs and voice calls – and share that data with businesses.

WhatsApp quickly said that people were mistaken and it couldn’t see anything inside encrypted chats and calls. But it was too late.

“The whole world now seems to understand that Facebook isn’t building apps for them, Facebook is building apps for their data,” said Moxie Marlinspike, founder and CEO of Signal. “Just this little catalyst is needed to push people over the boundaries of change.”