Telegram’s “people nearby” feature has been suspected of being a way for state authorities to locate and track dissidents.
Telegram founder Pavel Durov revealed that Telegram is cutting certain features from the platform—including media uploads to the platform’s “Telegraph” blog and disabling the “people nearby” feature—in a Sept. 6 announcement.
Durov told his followers that media uploads to the blogging platform were “misused” by malicious actors, explaining that the vast majority of the Telegram community was not abusing these features. However, Durov made it clear that the “0.001% involved in illicit activities” pose a disproportionate risk to the vast majority of law-abiding users on Telegram.
The Telegram co-founder also announced that the individual geolocation tracking would be ditched for a “businesses nearby” option. Durov likewise claimed that this personal geolocation feature was only used by a tiny minority of Telegram users.
