Some Important Reasons TikTok and Telegram Are Still in The Books When They Should Not

Ars Technica, on TikTok at risk of being banned in the US:

"Estimates show that small businesses on TikTok would lose more than $1 billion in revenue [in US] and creators would suffer almost $300 million in lost earnings in just one month unless the TikTok Ban is halted," TikTok's spokesperson said. In the same period, TikTok would lose about 29 percent of advertising revenue, the court filing said, after losing a third or more of users.

Of course, you should take these estimates with a grain of salt, being made by the company that can lose all if banned in the US. Moreover, knowing China, heads would roll (literally) at ByteDance, if banned in the US, and knowing the EU, they would also start banning TikTok, using the US as a precedent.

New York Times, on Telegram in Ukraine (paywalled):

Ukraine is now trying to disentangle itself from Telegram. In September, authorities ordered the military, government officials and those working on critical infrastructure to limit their use of the app on work phones. More sensitive communications have been moved to encrypted apps like Signal.

And

Ukraine’s experience with Telegram illustrates the benefits and drawbacks of being beholden to a single app. Rarely has a country been so reliant on a platform it has no control over for communication, information, and other critical services, particularly during a war.

But

For Ukraine, distancing itself from Telegram will not be easy. Roughly 70 percent of Ukrainians use Telegram as a main source of news, according to a recent survey commissioned in part by the U.S. government. When air raid sirens wail and missiles descend on Ukrainian cities, people flock to Telegram groups for real-time updates. The government broadcasts official announcements and gathers intelligence inside Russian-occupied territories through the app.

Moreover, because

Telegram’s prominence grew during Mr. Zelensky’s presidential run in 2019. His campaign deftly used the service to connect with voters, thanks partly to Mykhailo Fedorov, a young digital strategist who now leads the Ministry of Digital Transformation. In a 2020 interview, Mr. Fedorov said he had regular contact with Mr. Durov and his management team.

Knowing what we know now about Durov, his relationship with Mother Russia, and about his fake offices in the Emirates, I guess Fedorov needs to be fired?

You may say Ukraine's situation is special, being at war, while many other countries are simply choosing Telegram because people like it. On the contrary: imagine you are at war with another nation but cannot break yourself free from the enemy's own communication channel.

It is the best example of how these social networks, that cannot be controlled or audited, work.

It shows you that things which are impossible to fix should have been prevented.