[snailmailman]

I’ve always been under the impression that Signal is for secure, private chats and group chats amongst friends and small groups. While telegram is often used more like discord or irc, with “secure” and “private” group chats that are extremely large and semi-public. “Invite only” but invites are handed out easily. Those chats are pretty obviously not as secure, as basically anybody can join them and decrypt the chat. On the surface its somewhat more secure than discord, where discord will be scanning all chat content.

[maqp]

The bigger issue is Telegram advertises it as more private option to WhatsApp although Telegram collects more metadata, and also the message content. People think Telegram is more private, they don't use it as a public forum replacement. Also, institutions running Telegram have people form closer working groups that become groups for friends, who don't necessarily realize they should be moving to Signal the moment the members start sharing things they don't want everyone to know.