Everything is "heavily encrypted" these days. What matters is end-to-end encryption to prevent the server spying vector. They definitely have deceptive advertising.
>Telegram keeps your messages safe from hacker attacks.
They can claim this but E2EE would actually do this. The servers must be trusted which is stupid. They are definitely keeping messages far less safe than other messengers. With Signal and WhatsApp you mainly can focus on securing your phones as they are the endpoints. iPhones are quite secure so for many people they have quite secure messaging because of E2EE and a secure device.
A very weird messenger. They should implement good E2EE by default like WhatsApp. That way they would have no reason to not comply with laws demanding user data.
It seems like a honeypot but probably helpful to intelligence agencies, not police.
The thing that makes it seem secure and good to many people might be the lack of a backdoor for regular national and local police, which would be impactful because of all the cybercrime that takes place.
There seems to be groups dedicated to defending its privacy technology which is just irrational.