Da'esh, ignoring the fact that they're a terrorist organisation, are actually trying to solve an interesting problem, which is, they need to be both secure, but

Da'esh, ignoring the fact that they're a terrorist organisation, are actually trying to solve an interesting problem, which is, they need to be both secure, but also engage with/recruit people who are not so tech savvy and are used to easy social media apps with simple UX - basically they NEED to be BOTH secure AND accessible. So whilst they likely know of more secure options like PGP or OTR, these are not what their target audience are using or have the capability to use - they are interested in keeping the dragnet for new recruits wide, so have to tailor their approach for the current generation, hence Telegram, which is supposedly secure and also already making inroads in the current market as an alternative to WhatsApp, and is less geeky than something like Signal. I remember years back when I attempted the same problem with a thing called Wire, for activists, that I posted on here and combined Facebook/Twitter type stuff with "secure" messaging, which was a web based UI that implemented AES256 based browser encryption based on the Stanford JS library. I got thoroughly roasted by people that knew what they were doing, so I shut the project down realising that what I was doing was dangerous due to lack of qualification. It's interesting seeing all the projects that have sprouted up since, and clearly I was on the money with the initial idea. https://github.com/radiosilence/wire https://github.com/radiosilence/wire