2023-09-30 10:37:13
The instant messaging application “Telegram” on smartphones. (CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT/AFP via Getty Images)
[Epoch Times, September 30, 2023](Epoch Times reporter Li Yun interviewed and reported) Telegram, a well-known communication software with 800 million active users, cooperated with Chinese Internet giant Tencent, which caused controversy. Industry insiders warned that relevant cooperation may bring various information security risks to users.
According to Tencent’s news on September 27, Telegram and the TON Fund are cooperating with Tencent. Tencent developers will participate in building applications on Telegram, which is expected to turn Telegram into a “super application ecological platform” similar to WeChat, allowing third-party developers and merchants to develop small programs from games to restaurants to interact with users. Developers can use JavaScript to create infinitely flexible interfaces that can be launched inside Telegram or completely replace any website.
The TON Foundation is Telegram’s cryptocurrency partner and builds a platform for Telegram to interact with users. Telegram is called “Telegraph” in Chinese. In order to evade the CCP’s Internet censorship, many mainland people use Telegram to communicate with the outside world by circumventing the Chinese Communist Party’s wall.
After the news of Telegram’s cooperation with Tencent broke out, public opinion was worried that the CCP’s censorship mechanism would bring various risks to users.
On September 30, IT industry insider He Jiawei told The Epoch Times that when Tencent cooperates with Telegram, users face the risk of being monitored, and hackers can invade computers and mobile phones through monitored backdoors and steal users’ private personal data.
He explained: “Because Tencent is controlled by the Chinese Communist government, a lot of information will enter their big database. The Chinese Communist Party can use big data to control the people it wants to control.”
“Isn’t Tencent WeChat completely controlled? If you use WeChat, cyber police and even hackers can invade your account at any time, change your information, or use your account to do other things. Almost all your information is on It is within the scope of their control because the backdoor behind it is huge.” He Jiawei said.
Media sources reveal that there are CCP cyber supervisors working in Tencent’s headquarters building
Mainland media person Wang Ang (pseudonym) told The Epoch Times that if Telegram cooperates with Tencent, it will definitely become a software like WeChat.
He said: “Tencent has long become a major position for the Communist Party to safeguard its power. The Tencent headquarters office building has several floors. The top floors contain the Chinese Communist Party’s national security department, Internet surveillance department, public security department, and military intelligence department. They work inside. They use WeChat to monitor democrats, human rights lawyers, petitioners and other groups that they deem unsafe, and they can read the WeChat messages of these people every day.”
“Tencent has long been assimilated by the Communist Party’s system and has become a tool for its rule. When you use WeChat, it can block your account and your group at any time, and it can also read all your data from the WeChat backend. Your speech in the group, anything you say to anyone, and all your forwarded records are all visible to them,” Wang Ang said.
Tencent was founded in 1998 and established a party branch in 2003. As of 2020, 275 party branches have been established. Tencent has been closely following the CCP and assisting the CCP in monitoring users. In recent years, a large number of people have been arrested and sentenced for using WeChat.
Expert: The CCP can modify Telegram without any procedures
On September 30, Jin Chun, a former Huawei software engineer, told The Epoch Times, “When Telegram cooperates with Tencent, users’ various financial information, credit card numbers, bank passwords and other information may be disclosed, not to mention chat information and registration information. If you say it, it will be revealed.”
“Furthermore, Telegram itself is open source. The CCP can directly use it without the knowledge of Telegram’s founders and original developers, directly transform it, and then release a Telegram for everyone to use.” Jin Chun said, Telegram now has the same The original Telegram is already very different.
The human rights organization “Human Rights in China” has also warned that this cooperation may allow Telegram and third-party developers to collect large amounts of user identity data.
An illustration of Telegram displayed on a tablet device. (DENIS CHARLET/AFP via Getty Images)
In recent years, many anti-communists, human rights activists, petitioners, and Hong Kong pro-democracy figures have established groups on Telegram to communicate, and many people have transferred articles and videos banned in China to Telegram for storage. Before the relevant cooperation was announced, a large number of Telegram user accounts had been stolen, anti-communist posts were censored, and groups were attacked.
Jin Chun pointed out: “The account theft must have been an organized act, but it did not involve the source code and software levels, only the chat level. After Telegram cooperated with Tencent, the CCP was able to conduct deceptive activities at the underlying level of the software, let alone It’s safe.”
Many Telegram users do not understand why Telegram associates with the evil regime of the Chinese Communist Party.
Jin Chun said, “This is the Chinese Communist Party’s strategy, and it is the same strategy as it uses to deal with other foreign social media.”
He Jiawei believes that Telegram’s cooperation with Tencent “should be related to the continuous penetration of Chinese capital into technology companies in Western countries. That is, Chinese capital slowly penetrates with money, and eventually takes over all the shares and controls the entire company. If it is big The shareholder is Tencent, so it can’t help it. Those with more shares have management rights.”
He Jiawei said: “In some news organizations in various countries, the CCP uses money to slowly infiltrate, provide money to support you, and then slowly eat up your shares, and in the end they become completely managed by Chinese capital. This is the CCP’s influence on the world Part of information warfare.”
Editor in charge: Lin Congwen
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