First, welcome to the forum and the community!

Telegram’s claim of being an encrypted messenger is what I was dismissing. The article shared by Jack and indirectly by Pavel included language as “if this is true” which means they are not affirming anything to be fact.

Grants being provided means there is zero obligation to payback or do anything outside of what it was given for. Its the same as someone getting a grant to go to college, this does not make that person a puppet of the government. Just because OTF gave a grant to Signal doesn’t mean that Signal was built for that purpose. Signal began life as TextSecure (and Redphone) in 2010, 2 years prior to the creation of the OTF. The claim that Signal was funded by US agencies for that reason suggests thats the only reason it exists. The creation of TextSecure 2 years prior shows that there were other motivations because the fund that supposedly funded the purpose didn’t exist yet.

To be clear, I am not saying that Signal didn’t receive funds from the OTF for that reason . . . it is quite possible that the motivation to give a grant to Signal was completely that reason however, that in itself does not instantly mean that Signal’s existence was that purpose or that Signal was “funded by the US government”.

We have sponsors on our shows to make it possible to create these shows in a sustainable way . . . this means we receive funding from these companies but none of them would count as “TuxDigital was funded by ” because that phrase means that it was solely funded by a single entity.