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What are the risks of Telegram Messenger?
Group messages can be created in Telegram Messenger. These groups can be restricted to family and friends only or they can be made public for anyone around the world to join. The administrator(s) of the group hold the majority of control and have the ability to set group permissions. They can choose to block a user from posting into the group. This could be used in a negative way where a child is being bullied and cannot reply.
Telegram users can create their own content. This is in the form of stickers, bots or channels - all of which is publicly available. As the content is generated by the users themselves there may be some content that is adult themed, sexual in nature or illegal and can be easily accessed by users before any attempt to remove it.
Telegram offers a secret chat option with end-to-end encryption. Messages cannot be forwarded from a secret chat and if a user decides to delete a message it will be deleted both ends. This could encourage cyberbullying where users believe they can delete evidence.
There is an option to forward messages from regular Telegram messages. These messages can be forwarded to other groups or users. When the recipient receives the forwarded message they will also receive a link to the profile of the poster. Using this information they can contact your child without knowing who they are. This increases the risk of your child connecting with complete strangers.