I've been reading this thread (before and after some posts being removed by moderators). I just want to say that I'm truly frustrated (but mostly perplexed) by the number of posts from people on here that don't seem to grasp the inherent dangers of censorship by big brother and who naively don't understand how free speech is the bedrock of a free society...especially when the right to privacy and the right to free speech go hand in hand.
Free society means being able to have a free exchange of thoughts and ideas. You can't speak your mind unless you feel safe to do so, especially when the world is filled with evil people that want to silence or "make disappear" those that disagree with them. Governments are not shy about putting people on lists.
Privacy is one tool to make people feel safe enough to speak freely. That's why we say the right to privacy is a human right, just like how free speech is an "inalienable right."
We speak about threat models a lot. And weirdly, the same people speaking about not trusting XYZ tech company or their government - who are recommending encrypted and open-source software to protect their speech and expression...simultaneously support authoritarian restrictions on speech and expression??
It's also strange seeing many of the tired and debunked arguments ("objectionable" content, think of the children, terrorists, criminals, etc) from people on here when these arguments have already been understood to be poor or even fake excuses to conceal governments' desire to instill mass surveillance, issue uninterrupted government propaganda, and silence dissenters.
It's very strange that people on a forum for a privacy focused operating system, who celebrate how difficult if is for the government to crack GrapheneOS, are quick to insult another privacy focused project for not willingly allowing governments to spy on their users. Sure, Telegram's itself was poorly designed as a private messenger compared to other private messengers, but people on here are also attacking the company's free speech and user privacy philosophy in general, stating that it should have been doing more to censor users at government's convenience, which would also inherently erode user privacy.
It was less than 10 years ago that ordinary people widely celebrated Apple for publicly refusing to cooperate with the FBI in the 2015 San Bernardino terrorist attack. And this was in the aftermath of an actual terrorist attack when emotions were high - when people were desperate and more likely to support authoritarian mass surveillance and population control measures. Not even 10 years later and now even so-called privacy enthusiasts welcome authoritarianism because they're offended by things people say online.
This is scary and sad.