Hi Betty, On Mon, Apr 7, 2025 at 9:13 PM Betty Fausta - IPEOS <bf@ipeos.com> wrote:
I'm an active user of signal and really appreciate this messenger can fully respect our data privacy. I just warned about the fact that maiN SIGNAL users are in Northern America and Europe, that a fact https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/signal-users-by-country
I confirm that Telegram is an open source messenger ( https://github.com/telegramdesktop/tdesktop) and for python dev or many apps or content creator, we can use many API to connect tools, monitoring and manage large scale group.
The difference is that the SERVER code is open source for Signal and not Telegram. But I'm not going to be dogmatic about it. If global accessibility is the priority, then WhatsApp is the clear winner. There are parts of Asia and Africa in which I'm aware the main smartphone apps are Facebook, WhatsApp, mobile banking, a browser and not much else. During my most active career in development, Facebook was actively promoting its Free Basics program <https://www.facebook.com/connectivity/solutions/free-basics/> that provided subsidized connectivity in return for giving Meta products priority. (For a while that was promoted under the internet.org banner but I see that domain is just used generically by Meta now). For many participants in the Canada/Jamaica agricultural project in which I am now involved it's WhatsApp or nothing.
yes we need to discuss more security or large adoption of a common tool. Maybe ICANN community can create a tread with Signal, Olvid and Discord. We can probably do it.
As I mentioned before , I have created an ALAC Discord server, complete with voice and event-making capabilities, and the capacity to run plugins to handle translation. Anyone is welcome to try it out: https://discord.gg/94Q2wFFM Easy to delete if in the end it's not wanted.
I use many because i'm a cross community member. It's like this when you live in a small Caribbean islands and you mobilise to create a better internet for tomorrow. Like many suggested, the idea of a task force group can be explored.
I assume that most well-connected people need multiple ways of talking to others. On my phone right now I have Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp, Discord, Teams, Zoom along with good old SMS. All are in active use. I can further access Facebook Messenger, Slack and Nextcloud Chat through my browser. I also used to have Wechat when I was doing significant business in Asia but have since deleted it. Indeed the field is broad, and almost any of the above could easily replace Skype. I simply make the case that if open source and security are priorities, Signal stands out while WhatsApp is the best at reaching the maximum global audience without most people needing to join a new platform. - Evan