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How Telegram's updated privacy policy forced criminals to change platforms.
Security researchers have documented unusual activity in cyberspace: in recent weeks, dozens of neo-Nazis have begun to leave Telegram and switch to the little-known messenger SimpleX Chat. This comes after the arrest of Telegram creator Pavel Durov and charges against the leaders of the Terrorgram Collective, a neo-Nazi network that calls for attacks on government facilities and violence against people of other races.
According to the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), extremists fear that Telegram's privacy policy exposes them to the risk of arrest. In particular, one of the groups associated with the now-banned neo-Nazi terrorist organization Atomwaffen Division, which has 13,000 Telegram subscribers, moved to SimpleX. On the new messenger, it has already gained about 1,000 participants.
Extremists use SimpleX to share content, including instructions on how to build weapons and calls for violence. For example, ISD analysts have documented several cases of calls for the murder of high-ranking officials, such as US Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. In addition, radicals actively spread propaganda aimed at inciting racial hatred and violence.
SimpleX Chat is an app developed by British citizen Evgeny Poberezhkin and launched in 2021. SimpleX recently raised $1.3 million in funding, including the participation of Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter. Poberezhkin claims that he was not aware of the use of his app by neo-Nazi groups and said that SimpleX will fight the spread of illegal content on its platform.
The peculiarity of SimpleX is that its privacy policy and focus on anonymity provide extremists with significant advantages over Telegram. SimpleX doesn't require a phone number or email when you sign up, and its messages are end-to-end encrypted by default. This makes it harder to track users and makes the platform safer for those seeking to avoid law enforcement.
ISD experts note that extremist groups are actively settling down on the new platform, transferring their propaganda materials to SimpleX and attracting supporters. However, SimpleX's scaling and functionality limitations may make it difficult to use the messenger to develop a large extremist network.
Source
Security researchers have documented unusual activity in cyberspace: in recent weeks, dozens of neo-Nazis have begun to leave Telegram and switch to the little-known messenger SimpleX Chat. This comes after the arrest of Telegram creator Pavel Durov and charges against the leaders of the Terrorgram Collective, a neo-Nazi network that calls for attacks on government facilities and violence against people of other races.
According to the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), extremists fear that Telegram's privacy policy exposes them to the risk of arrest. In particular, one of the groups associated with the now-banned neo-Nazi terrorist organization Atomwaffen Division, which has 13,000 Telegram subscribers, moved to SimpleX. On the new messenger, it has already gained about 1,000 participants.
Extremists use SimpleX to share content, including instructions on how to build weapons and calls for violence. For example, ISD analysts have documented several cases of calls for the murder of high-ranking officials, such as US Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. In addition, radicals actively spread propaganda aimed at inciting racial hatred and violence.
SimpleX Chat is an app developed by British citizen Evgeny Poberezhkin and launched in 2021. SimpleX recently raised $1.3 million in funding, including the participation of Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter. Poberezhkin claims that he was not aware of the use of his app by neo-Nazi groups and said that SimpleX will fight the spread of illegal content on its platform.
The peculiarity of SimpleX is that its privacy policy and focus on anonymity provide extremists with significant advantages over Telegram. SimpleX doesn't require a phone number or email when you sign up, and its messages are end-to-end encrypted by default. This makes it harder to track users and makes the platform safer for those seeking to avoid law enforcement.
ISD experts note that extremist groups are actively settling down on the new platform, transferring their propaganda materials to SimpleX and attracting supporters. However, SimpleX's scaling and functionality limitations may make it difficult to use the messenger to develop a large extremist network.
Source
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