Recently, news about Chinese law enforcement agencies massively monitoring Telegram users has attracted widespread attention. According to the South China Morning Post, the Ministry of Public Security has deployed a "super tool" specifically for monitoring Telegram, covering a vast range. The system has collected over 30 billion messages, involving about 70 million registered Chinese mobile numbers on Telegram accounts, as well as 390,000 groups and channels.
This system is powerful, capable of real-time listening to chat content, reconstructing social network relationships, cross-platform data retrieval, scoring user behavior, and even possessing device intrusion capabilities. In other words, the speeches, interactions, and usage habits of Chinese users on Telegram may be labeled with "behavior tags" and subject to intervention.
Industry insiders point out that this tool aims to systematically identify, model, and intervene in the use of Telegram by Chinese users. Once on the key monitoring list, individuals are almost entirely transparent, with social trajectories and private communications fully exposed.
Experts suggest that to reduce the risk of being monitored, users should take protective measures: deregister the original +86 number and register a new one, only use the official version from telegram.org, enable the "secret chat" feature, set up two-step verification, and regularly clear chat histories, avoiding discussing sensitive topics in groups.
This news has caused panic among many Telegram users. In the future, Telegram may no longer be a secure communication tool in China, but a "transparent cage" that could be scrutinized at any time.
