Telegram founder Durov asks people to delete WhatsApp

SAN FRANCISCO: Telegram founder Parel Durov, in his post on the platform, has urged people to delete WhatsApp unless they are “okay with surveillance”, media reports said.

Facebook-owned WhatsApp, which has been mired by a snooping row, is used as a Trojan horse to spy on the users’ non-WhatsApp content that includes images stored on their smartphones, according to Durov.

“Unless you are cool with all of your photos and messages becoming public one day, you should delete WhatsApp from your phone,” Durov said on his Telegram channel to his 335,000 followers, Forbes reported on Thursday.

WhatsApp has a huge global user base of 1.6 billion users while Telegram has 200 million users globally.