WhatsApp restricting links to its Telegram competitor, Facebook disappears its page

Granted, Telegram's about 60 million of registered users are no match for WhatsApp's billion or so, but the most popular instant messaging platform has very weak ratings in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's security scorecard, so up-and-comers in the protected chat area like Telegram may be considered a threat.

Back in the spring, it was announced that WhatsApp is working with Open Whisper Systems to deliver end-to-end encryption of messages, but the process has been slow and incremental, plus Open Whisper just delivered their own secure chat and voice call encryption app, Signal, which got endorsed by whistleblower extraordinaire Edward Snowden himself. 

Telegram, on the other hand, recently went into the spotlight for somewhat dubious reasons. It turned out that ISIS has been advising its fellow militants to use it as their daily driver in the place of WhatsApp, Viber, Facebook Messenger, Skype and whatnot, in order to encrypt their communications. Apparently, all publicity is good publicity, if WhatsApp is taking such blocking measures against Telegram indeed. Facebook has also taken down its account on the social network, though Telegram's founder is pretty nonplussed about it, saying that "We didn’t use it, so we didn’t even notice it.” Fun times.

source: TechCrunch, EFF & Telegram