I got an unexpected front row seat to the beginnings of ongoing conspiracy theorist rumblings about Signal last month because one thing paranoid cranks on Twitter love to do is play the “Transitive Property of Bad People” game.

Attacking Signal took off with a vengeance bc *NPR* didn’t cave and fire Katharine Maher, their new CEO, who is also on the Signal board. To punish Maher, rw activists mad at NPR began to go after all her affiliations. This is provocateur’s playbook 101. But anyway…
For the last 3 years I’ve also been on the board of a payments project Signal incubated. And I’m a “bad person” too - not prog, but Deep State (🙄) More evidence! Also Signal’s current CEO prev worked at Google. Connect the dots, sheeple!

As this attack began I mocked it publicly but also privately joked to security & disinfo research folks that Telegram - and Russian intelligence!! - should really take advantage of the moment to drive the deluded to the less secure alternative. And here we are!
This concern ab signal - a manufactroversy that it’s “compromised” based on zero evidence - has been roiling on Twitter for weeks now. This article sums it up.

It’s egregiously malicious & dangerous for some idiot w/a vendetta and a megaphone to undermine secure messaging this way. If they were actually pro-free speech and not just culture warriors they might understand why.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2024/05/10/telegram-issues-whatsapp-and-signal-warning-for-iphone-and-android/
Signal Warns Users To Beware Telegram’s ‘Dangerous Disinformation’

The war of words between Signal and Telegram has suddenly intensified...

Forbes