Telegram founder Pavel Durov recently took aim at rival messaging app Signal, labeling its privacy mechanisms as a “circus trick” in a May 8 post on Truth Social. However, given Telegram's own privacy track record, Durov's criticisms appear more self-serving than substantive.

Durov has a history of disparaging Signal. In 2017, he predicted that a backdoor would be found in Signal's protocol within five years—a prediction that has not come to pass. Signal's founder, Moxie Marlinspike, has also been critical of Telegram, urging people to stop calling it an encrypted messaging app. The animosity between the two platforms is well-documented, making Durov's latest comments seem like another attempt to undermine his competitor rather than a genuine warning about privacy issues.

Signal, despite being under scrutiny following controversial remarks by Signal Foundation Chair Katherine Maher, remains a highly respected app in the realm of secure messaging. Maher's comments about Wikipedia's "free and open" nature promoting a "white male Westernized construct" drew significant backlash, including reactions from prominent figures like Jack Dorsey, Vitalik Buterin, and Elon Musk. Durov seized this moment to redirect public outrage toward Signal, leveraging the controversy to cast doubt on its privacy credentials.

Signal quickly responded to these attacks. President Meredith Whittaker provided context and clarity to diffuse the situation, emphasizing that Signal's open-source, highly audited code ensures user privacy regardless of internal politics.

Conversely, Telegram's privacy features are less robust. Unlike Signal, Telegram does not offer end-to-end encryption by default, and it lacks end-to-end encrypted group chats entirely. Opt-in privacy features, such as Telegram's Secret Chats, mean that most users do not benefit from the highest level of security, leaving them vulnerable.

The criticism of Signal by figures like Tucker Carlson, who claimed on Lex Fridman's podcast that the NSA accessed his Signal messages, further fueled skepticism. Carlson's interview with Durov in April might have set the stage for Durov's May post, where he suggested that private Signal messages had been exploited—a claim indirectly pointing to Carlson’s experience.

Durov's assertion that Telegram provides "the only popular method of communication that is verifiably private" is misleading. Telegram's lack of default end-to-end encryption and its limited encrypted group chat options contradict this claim. Instead, Durov appears to be exploiting public doubts to position Telegram as a superior alternative to Signal, despite its evident privacy shortcomings.

Signal's stance remains that trust in their platform does not hinge on individual personalities but on their transparent, open-source code. This approach emphasizes a trustless model where the security of communications is verifiable by anyone with the technical know-how.

In contrast, I work on Session, an end-to-end encrypted messaging app that operates on a decentralized network. Session's open-source client and server code ensures verifiable security, with community-operated nodes contributing to a trustless system. However, the decentralized model presents challenges, such as maintaining complex key ratcheting for cryptographic security, which centralized platforms handle more efficiently.

Ultimately, no messaging platform is without trade-offs. The convenience and instant messaging experience of Telegram come at the cost of comprehensive end-to-end encryption, whereas Signal offers robust privacy but faces public relations challenges. As the debate continues, users must weigh their priorities—privacy versus convenience—and choose their platforms accordingly.