UPDATE - Durov Sees Foreign Leaders' Influx to Telegram as Largest Digital Migration

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 14th January, 2021) Pavel Durov, the founder of the Telegram messenger, qualified on Thursday the recent massive influx of foreign leaders to Telegram as potentially the largest digital migration in human history, also noting that Telegram channels were the best way for politicians to reliably connect with audiences.

"Since my last post, the already massive influx of new users to Telegram has only accelerated. We may be witnessing the largest digital migration in human history," Durov wrote in his Telegram blog.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan just recently joined a list of other heads of state already present in Telegram, including French President Emmanuel Macron, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Durov recalled.

"We are honored that political leaders, as well as numerous public organizations, rely on Telegram to combat misinformation and spread awareness about important issues in their societies. Unlike other networks, Telegram doesn't use nontransparent algorithms to decide whether a subscriber will see content they subscribed to or not.

As a result, Telegram channels are the only direct way for opinion leaders to reliably connect with their audiences," Durov continued.

Other country leaders include Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loong, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, according to Durov's list.

"By removing the manipulative algorithms that have become synonymous with 2010s technology platforms, Telegram channels restore transparency and integrity to public 'one-to-many' communication," Durov concluded

Former President of Spain's Catalonia Carles Puigdemont also created an official account on Telegram. The description of the @carlespuigdemont channel said it belongs to "130th President of Catalonia, member of the European Parliament." The channel has only three posts so far and 5,848 subscribers.

Since the WhatsApp messenger announced last week it would introduce privacy policy changes allowing it to share some of user data with its parent company, millions of people flocked to Telegram, which now has over 500 million of active users.