Many in the crypto and privacy community mistakenly trust Telegram because it’s “end to end encrypted”, but there are huge issues including not hiding the metadata, censorship, centralization, and phone numbers.
Send this video to your friend that asks why you won’t join:
https://video.simplifiedprivacy.com/why-telegram-sucks/
It is based in a country that’s an ally of several 14 eyes country and you can bet your bottom dollar that it isn’t a country that’s going to tell the Big eyes of the 14 eyes to go f itself if they come knocking.