Telegram Gets 25 Million New Users In Three Days After WhatsApp Introduced Controversial Privacy Conditions
The encrypted messaging app, Telegram, has registered 25 million new users in the past 72 hours, its Russia-born founder, Pavel Durov, said Tuesday, on the heels of WhatsApp announcing a change to its privacy terms, AFP reports. Durov, 36, said on his Telegram channel that the app had over 500 million monthly active users in the first weeks of January and “25 million new users joined Telegram in the last 72 hours alone”. The surge in downloads comes after WhatsApp, which boasts over two billion users, introduced controversial changes to its privacy conditions that will allow it to share more data with its parent company, Facebook. “People no longer want to exchange their privacy for free services,” Durov said without directly referring to the rival app. WhatsApps’s new terms sparked criticism as users outside Europe who do not accept the new conditions before February 8 will be cut off from the messaging app. Telegram is a popular social media platform in a number of countr