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.
Durov, 36, said on his Telegram channel that the app had over 500 million monthly active users within the first weeks of January and “25 million new users joined Telegram within 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 which will allow it to share more data with its parent company Facebook.
“People not want to exchange their privacy for free of charge services,” Durov said without directly referring to the rival app.
WhatsApps’s new terms sparked criticism as users outside Europe who don’t accept the new conditions before February 8 are going to be stop from the messaging app.
Telegram may be a popular social media platform during a number of nations , particularly within the former Soviet Union and Iran, and is employed both for personal communications and sharing information and news.
Durov on Tuesday said Telegram has become the “largest refuge” for those seeking a personal and secure communications platform and guaranteed new users that his team “takes this responsibility very seriously”.
Telegram was founded in 2013 by brothers Pavel and Nikolai Durov, who also founded Russia’s social media network VKontakte.
Telegram refuses to cooperate with authorities and handover encryption keys, which resulted in its ban in several countries, including Russia.
Last year, Russia announced that it’ll lift its ban on the messenger app after quite two years of unsuccessful attempts to dam it.
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