2.1 Telegram: A Platform of ‘Freedom’ and a Breeding Ground for Crime? 深入公共议题，触摸舆论水温｜西西弗高速·深度版

深入公共议题，触摸舆论水温｜西西弗高速·深度版

西西弗高速

🚘 In This Episode

Note: This episode was first published on April 30, 2025.

Welcome to Sisyphus Highway: In Depth.

In this chapter, we turn to new forms of crime in the internet age and the technological platforms on which they rely. From encrypted messaging and online communities to Gen Z internet culture, several connected subjects help us reconsider how the internet has shaped today’s world.

This episode begins with the messaging app Telegram.

Telegram may be unfamiliar to many Chinese users, yet in recent years it has repeatedly appeared in the news. It hosted the chat rooms of the Nth Room case, overseas social-engineering databases behind doxxing incidents, and digital battlefields in the Russia-Ukraine war; it is also an important communications tool for telecom-fraud rings. Its Chinese name literally means “telegraph,” while in parts of Southeast Asia it is commonly called “airplane” after its paper-plane icon.

The encrypted messaging app, founded by Russian programmer Pavel Durov in 2013, was not created for crime. On the contrary, it initially pursued an ideal of the internet: privacy, free communication, and as little intervention by authority as possible. Today it has more than a billion users and has left its mark on social movements, wars, public events, and many emerging crimes.

We begin with Telegram’s creation and ask why it became what it is today. Through it, we reconsider:if a technology platform realizes the ideal of neutrality as fully as possible, what lies on the other side of that ideal? When technology promises a utopia, who makes the rules?