Telegram and Signal Havens for Right-Wing Extremists
Since the violent storming of Capitol Hill and subsequent ban of former U.S. President Donald Trump from Facebook and Twitter, the removal of Parler from Amazonβs servers, and the de-platforming of incendiary right-wing content, messaging services Telegram and Signal have seen a deluge of new users. In January alone, Telegram reported 90 million new accounts. Its founder, Pavel Durov, described this as βthe largest digital migration in human history.β Signal reportedly doubled its user base to 40 million people and became the most downloaded app in 70 countries. The two services rely on encryption to protect the privacy of user communication, which has made them popular with protesters seeking to conceal their identities against repressive governments in places like Belarus, Hong Kong, and Iran. But the same encryption technology has also made them a favored communication tool for criminals and terrorist groups, including al Qaeda and the Islamic State.
Look for Channels Online
You guessed it β the internet is your friend. A good place to start looking for Telegram channels is Reddit. This is one of the biggest sites on the internet, with millions of communities, including those from Telegram.Then, you can search one of the many dedicated websites for Telegram channel searching. One of them is telegram-group.com. This website has many categories and a really simple user interface. Another great site is telegram channels.me. It has even more channels than the previous one, and an even better user experience.These are just some of the many available websites. You can look them up online if youβre not satisfied with these two. All of these sites list only public channels. If you want to join a private channel, youβll have to ask one of its members to invite you.
