From food promos to porn and terrorism: The good and evil of Telegram groups

SINGAPORE — One helps members gather players for a mahjong game, while another sends members food-delivery promotions. Offering a variety of services and promotions, Telegram groups have grown in popularity, with some attracting tens of thousands of members.

However, there is a dark side to Telegram, too. Some Telegram groups have been thrust under the spotlight for the wrong reasons of late, with a handful outed for sharing pornography and voyeuristic images.

In even darker corners of the mobile application, there are people buying and selling illegal goods such as drugs, and it is even known to be the favoured messaging app among terrorists, thanks to the high level of privacy it offers its users.

THE WHOLESOME SIDE OF TELEGRAM

Many of Telegram’s most popular groups can be found via a simple search on the messaging app, and anyone can join most of these groups. Telegram’s website states that these groups can hold as many as 200,000 members, with members being able to share files as large as 1.5 gigabytes each.

Group members may also use bots, which are small programmes that run within Telegram. They can, for example, alert users to bus arrival timings or allow them to play interactive games.

Ms Isabel Wong, 23, a fresh graduate, said that Telegram bots have been useful in organising meet-ups among her friends, citing the example of the “PollBot”.

“The ‘PollBot’ is very organised as it allows people (in a group) to pick dates and options, such as where they would like to eat, or what days they’re free,” she said.

“It’s a much bigger hassle to set a date or time otherwise.”

A quick search on Telegram unearthed numerous groups that are catered to a diverse target audience.

Some of these groups were specific to a type of user — for instance, there is a group that caters to new couples moving into Build-to-Order flats in an estate in Tampines and it has 280 members.

General-interest groups have memberships in the thousands.

One that shares promotions to parents, such as workshops for children and discounts on school-related items, has more than 3,000 members.

Another group that shares internship opportunities with its members has almost 12,000 followers.

The largest group that caters to Singaporeans, TODAY found, is one that shares food promotions and discounts to its members. It has about 108,000 members. 

Miss Mildred Liu, 23, who works in finance, is a member of five such Telegram groups that advertise promotions and discounts.

She said that these groups help her find deals. “It’s easier than searching on Google, and (these groups) are updated very frequently.”

Associate Professor Eugene Tan, a law lecturer with the Singapore Management University (SMU), said that these groups attract members largely through word-of-mouth, due to the lack of budget for advertising.

“Word-of-mouth is also good because it tends to keep the group to a select audience,” he said.

This is “desirable” for the group if, by its nature, it may potentially run afoul of the law.

TELEGRAM’S DARKER SIDE

On Oct 15, two men and two teenagers were charged over their alleged involvement in the Telegram chat group “SG Nasi Lemak”, where obscene videos and photos of Singaporean girls were shared.

At its most popular, the group had more than 40,000 members, but it was called out by several women who discovered that their photos had been shared there.

A check by TODAY on the group when it was in use found individuals selling illegal items such as e-cigarettes, other vaping devices, duty-unpaid cigarettes and sexual performance drugs.

Among the free mobile messaging apps available, one of Telegram’s biggest draws is its emphasis on privacy.

Users may look up each other and send each other messages via usernames, which means interactions can occur without each party knowing the other’s phone number or real identity.

There are also secret chats on Telegram, which uses end-to-end encryption, which means only the sender and the recipient can read the messages and users leave no trace of their private conversations on the servers.

Secret chats also support self-destructing messages which are not part of the Telegram cloud and are thus only accessible on their devices of origin.

Groups can be made private, with administrators in the group having the power to add and remove members.

One such group, started in Singapore, was called “SharingIsCaring”, which is being investigated by the police for the alleged circulation of obscene photos of girls and women.

Criminal activities can occur even within groups that provide community services.

A student from the Nanyang Technological University was allegedly molested after she hitched a ride through a carpooling group called Ride Kakis (NTU), The Straits Times reported on Oct 23.

The man she took a ride with drove her to a secluded car park and then allegedly molested her. He has since been arrested.

Telegram has also been a “favourite” with terrorists from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis), who have used it to organise terrorist plots, disseminate propaganda and claim responsibility for attacks, the New York Times reported last year. 

Investigations in France, for example, uncovered in 2016 that several terrorists in the country were using the app as their platform of communication to arrange attacks in Paris.

And a Jakarta Globe report in July this year quoted a terrorism expert as saying that militants are grooming female recruits via messaging apps such as Telegram and WhatsApp.

The expert said that women who would have taken “at least five to 10 years” to radicalise in the past can now — with the help of dozens of chat rooms on Telegram — be radicalised in less than four months.

The terrorist activity on Telegram has prompted the governments of Russia and Iran to lead efforts to ban the app, on grounds of national security.

The growing criticism has led Telegram to crack down on public channels used by Isis, but the terrorist group is known to still be operating on the platform and Mr Pavel Durov, the co-founder of Telegram, has resisted calls for more transparency on the app, saying that private messages will remain private.

SHOULD AUTHORITIES CRACK DOWN ON TELEGRAM?

Given how convenient it is to use Telegram as a channel for dodgy dealings and even terrorist acts, should the authorities step up their policing of the platform?

Experts caution that governments should tread carefully.

For one, Mr Shivaji Das, the Asia-Pacific managing director of consultancy and research firm Frost & Sullivan, noted that Telegram’s privacy safeguards are also being used for real good.

For example, minority groups facing persecution in some parts of the world use Telegram to reach out to the international community and fight for their rights, he noted.

Associate Professor Tan of SMU said that short of intense surveillance, which may require an inordinate amount of resources, “the authorities are better off responding promptly to intelligence, feedback or complaints of such online groups”.

Banning the platform altogether is not the answer either, Assoc Prof Tan noted.

“Any communication device — WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook, even email — provides a platform for terrorists to coordinate their activities,” he said. “As it is in the real world, the ‘online neighbourhood watch’ is often more effective and efficient in dealing with illicit online groups”.

Agreeing, Mr Shivaji said that the “good old ways” of posing as customers or willing recipients of illicit information has been the way groups such as SG Nasi Lemak and SharingIsCaring have been discovered by the authorities.

The four administrators of the group have since been arrested and charged.

And despite Telegram’s famed privacy settings, a recent study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States showed that the end-to-end encryption technology that Telegram uses may not be watertight, the New York Times reported.

The app “has had serious and simple issues in the protocol,” the research found, adding that “any knowledgeable security expert could penetrate” those weaknesses.

Mr Shivaji gave the example of Hong Kong, where it was reported that it was possible for the authorities to get access to some of the messages circulated by the protesters.

“There are technical hacks around (overcoming the encryption),” he said. “If you already have suspects, you can monitor their interaction, who they are talking to, what is the frequency.”

NAVIGATING TELEGRAM’S GREY AREAS

Knowing then that Telegram has certain dark corners, how should the average user proceed when using the app?

Even if one is not dealing with illegal materials or goods, Assistant Professor Benjamin Joshua Ong from SMU's School of Law said that people who use Telegram should be aware that they may lack certain rights and protections when they make transactions with strangers they meet on the platform.

“For example, a person buying goods through (a Telegram) group may be lulled by the convenience factor into failing to clarify key details about the quality of the goods, the delivery timeline, whether the consumer can change his mind and return the goods for a refund and so on,” he said.

“This can lead to disputes later on. By contrast, it is more likely that an established retailer has clear terms and conditions covering such matters.”

Consumers should also be aware that certain consumer protection laws may not apply in certain informal transactions. For example: The Consumer Protection (Fair Trading) Act lists a series of "unfair practices" which "suppliers" are prohibited from engaging in, Asst Prof Ong noted.

But under the Act, a “supplier” is defined as someone who acts “in the course of [a] business”.

“So a consumer buying (for example) a camera from a retail business enjoys more protection than a person buying a camera from a hobbyist who is making a one-off sale but who is not selling as part of a business.”

And those using the app to get up to no good should also remember that a crime is a crime, even on Telegram, Asst Prof Ong added.

“The general laws which pertain to illegal goods or images usually apply regardless of the medium by which the goods are sold or the images are disseminated,” he said.

“For example, the Misuse of Drugs Act criminalises agreements to sell drugs, whether the agreement is made in person, through an online group, or through any other medium. Similarly, it is an offence under section 292 of the Penal Code to distribute obscene materials, regardless of whether it is done through electronic or non-electronic means.”