Well, the FAQ on their site clearly says that only "secret chats" are end-to-end encrypted.
Not sure where the lie is. Although, it indeed may mislead the average user who knows nothing about E2E.
WhatsApp made E2E the default only in 2016, i.e. 7 years after it was founded. Telegram is 11. The whole thing reminds me of http vs. https. Chrome started marking http as "Not Secure" only in 2018. I remember at some point the wisdom was that using http is OK as long as you don't use it to access your bank account etc. So https was like an opt-in ("if you want additional security"). But now it's the default. Telegram resists making E2E the default reportedly for UX reasons (easier data sync on multiple devices).
The lie is that it's not secure by default. Their FAQ clearly says that they have the technical ability to read private messages outside of "secret chats", which is the default option and the majority of messages on the platform.
So all the FAQs on their official site are open about technically being able to read private messages if you don't enable secret chats, and it's somehow lying?
The main page says Telegram is "secure" without elaborating, though. I can see people can be misled, but they're not lied to.
WhatsApp made E2E the default only in 2016, i.e. 7 years after it was founded. Telegram is 11. The whole thing reminds me of http vs. https. Chrome started marking http as "Not Secure" only in 2018. I remember at some point the wisdom was that using http is OK as long as you don't use it to access your bank account etc. So https was like an opt-in ("if you want additional security"). But now it's the default. Telegram resists making E2E the default reportedly for UX reasons (easier data sync on multiple devices).