Since its launch in 2013, Telegram has become a vital source of information for many in Russia. Not only propagandists loyal to the Kremlin, but also members of the opposition use the controversial messenger service.
Ten years ago today, the Russian entrepreneur Pavel Durov presented his messenger service Telegram, which he had developed together with his brother Nikolai. In Russia, the two were no strangers to social media. They had previously founded the popular social network VKontakte, which is significantly more popular in Russia than Facebook, which has since been banned.
Telegram also quickly developed into a success story. Users can not only exchange text and voice messages, photos, videos and documents, but also communicate with other Telegram users via audio or video. According to the Russian media research company Mediascope, 800 million people regularly use Telegram every month – one in ten of them comes from Russia.
Ukraine war made for even more users
With the start of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, Telegram was able to significantly increase its number of users in Russia: by 13 million in one month. The messenger service has developed into an intensively used source of information for many people in Russia. Almost half of Russian internet users follow between 6 and 15 channels on Telegram every day.
According to the Russian media analysis service TG Stat, Telegram is mainly used for information and politics. However, the truthfulness of the news spread there is doubtful, because actors with the most diverse intentions cavort on the platform: Russian propagandists, representatives of the Putin regime, military bloggers, but also members of the opposition use Telegram. You can reach a particularly large number of young people in Russia there – almost 70 percent are on Telegram.
Telegram defied the authorities
A few years ago, the messenger service in Russia had problems and was even blocked in the meantime because Telegram had refused to decrypt encrypted messages for the domestic secret service FSB. Telegram then constantly changed its IP addresses and used various cloud services to continue to ensure operations in Russia. In the end, the Russian media regulator Roskomnadzor gave up its blockade.
By the way, Russia’s Vladimir President Putin is not one of the users of Telegram. His spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin did not need this. After all, the entire world would hear every whisper from the Kremlin chief.
In Germany, Telegram is particularly criticized because the platform is used by all kinds of enemies of democracy. In the past, the messenger service has not consistently taken action against the spread of hate and hate speech on the Internet. Hate messages were often deleted late or not at all.