I also had this thought. Given how vehemently reproducible f-droid builds were rejected, along with forks, and the app insistance in "phoning home" continuously

I also had this thought. Given how vehemently reproducible f-droid builds were rejected, along with forks, and the app insistance in "phoning home" continuously on phones without Google Play at the expense of the battery, regardless of the multiple fixes submitted that were ignored. The outdated openssl in signal-desktop, the lack of libsignal development vs fancy UI, the strong rejection of any sort of federation work as "too hard", the plans to upload contacts somewhere as if the masses they target needed this at all... but yeah they added stickers so must be legit.