Over the past few years, users of social media applications have become increasingly wary of the security and safety of the social media applications they use. Messenger applications such as Whatsapp have been identified to be insecure. That is why the telegram application was introduced to offer security and enable people to create large groups for effective communication. The article by Heba Soffar,’ the advantages and disadvantages of telegram,’ highlight how this application has become important for users. This application is fast in messaging, offers high security, it has no ads, and most importantly, messages and information shared are shared in cloud, and people will never lose any information shared.

Image by Kevin Rothrock

However, William Turton, in his article ‘why you should stop using telegram right now seems to disagree security of the application. He reiterates that the application has had some security issues. For instance, chats are not encrypted by default, as advocated by the FBI. The author also argues that the application leaks data and information of its users. So, the major question remains whether this application offers the security of the information of its users. There are major contradictions relating to this aspect, as many people have debated about the security of the application. I agree with Heba Soffar on the security of the application, as the secret chats of the users offer end-to-end encryption, making them safe and secure. It has become one of the hottest chatting applications, as many users love the security and safety of their communication.
This new application has some of the characteristics described by Lee Manovich. For instance, you can create an automated bot on this application without coding, and automation is one of the principles of the new media. Secondly, this application has also followed the principle of transcoding. You can get notified through telegram when a user is transcoding. Numerical presentation is also another principle evident in this new technology. Telegram displays a pixel-like array image which has a set of alpha-numeric characters. These examples point to the fact that telegram has adopted these principles of new media in its development.
Questions
1. Does the end-to-end encryption on this application mean that that the chats and conversations of users are completely secure?
2. Should chat and conversations be private and confidential? What if criminal activities and deals are conducted in these messaging applications? What is the appropriate course of action?