With 550m users, the social network has been accused of providing a platform for organising riots in the UK
With 550 million users, Telegram is the biggest underground app in the world. A hybrid messaging service and social network, the company seems to make controversy a core part of its business.
From its early days as a rebellion against growing censorship in its founders’ home nation of Russia, through controversies around its lack of encryption and adoption of cryptocurrency, to its role today as an essentially unmoderated chatroom that has been accused of providing a platform for organising riots in the UK, the through line has been an ardent, and often reckless, belief in free speech.
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