Lauren Goode: How essential is Signal to you?
Michael Calore: The messaging app?
Lauren Goode: Yeah, the messaging app.
Michael Calore: Completely essential.
Lauren Goode: Why is that?
Michael Calore: I use it all the time. I mean, not just because I’m a journalist and I’m valuing my privacy, but also I’m on Android. So a lot of times, when I message people from my default Android messaging app, I’m not sure what the encryption level is, and Signal brings a sense of sureness to that. So I pretty much use it for encryption, but also it’s just better for group chats because Android, iOS group chats are broken still after all these years, and Signal fixes that for me.
Lauren Goode: I thought you were going to say that Signal’s essential to you because that’s where I message you.
Michael Calore: Yes. That also. Also, yes, it’s how we hear from Lauren.
Lauren Goode: What about Telegram?
Michael Calore: Telegram? No. I don’t know anybody who’s on it, and I basically just ignore it anyway, because it’s not as strongly encrypted. Do you use Telegram?
Lauren Goode: I did once while I was reporting out a story. And the moment I joined it, a friend got one of those alerts like, “Lauren joined Telegram,” and messaged me, “Welcome to the dark side.”
Michael Calore: Yeah, it can be pretty dark. There’s also been a lot of news about Telegram over the last couple of weeks.
Lauren Goode: There has been, and we should talk about it.
Michael Calore: Let’s do it.
Lauren Goode: Let’s do it.
[Gadget Lab intro theme music plays]
Lauren Goode: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Gadget Lab. I am Lauren Goode. I’m a senior writer at WIRED.
Michael Calore: And I am Michael Calore. I am WIRED’s director of consumer tech and culture.
Lauren Goode: And we’re also joined this week by WIRED senior writer Andy Greenberg. Andy, welcome back to the show. It’s been a while.
Andy Greenberg: Glad to talk to you all again.
Lauren Goode: We’re usually talking to you about hackers and spy capers and exciting things like that. Today, we’re bringing you on to talk about messaging apps. But there’s a lot of drama around these particular apps right now. As some of our listeners may be aware of by now, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov was recently arrested on charges that a lack of content moderation on his app have led to people using it for criminal activity. This opens up a whole can of worms about whether, quote-unquote, encrypted messaging and social apps should be regulated or considered responsible for the content that’s posted on them. So, Andy, let’s talk about this. We’re going to get into Signal later, because you had this big exclusive interview with the Signal president recently, but let’s first unwind what is going on with Telegram. Why was Pavel Durov arrested?
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