Pavel Durov, founder of Telegram, declared on May 23 that the encryption system in WhatsApp — owned by Meta, which is recognized as extremist and banned in the Russian Federation — constitutes a “major deception” and has “sold the privacy” of users. The statement was made in response to the state of Texas’s lawsuit alleging that WhatsApp has misled users about their privacy.
According to Durov, the Texas lawsuit claims that WhatsApp employees have access to “virtually all” personal messages. On April 10, Durov previously warned that WhatsApp’s encryption feature could become “the biggest scam in history,” asserting that the service reads user messages and shares them with third parties.
In January, reports indicated that Meta had been accused of fraud due to its access to user correspondence. However, Meta maintains it uses end-to-end encryption by default for private messages and calls.
Analysts have observed a significant decline in Telegram and WhatsApp traffic within Russia.
