How a smear campaign against NPR led Elon Musk to feud with Signal

Rightwing media personalities on X transmuted a screed against NPR's CEO into a fight over encryption via the Transitive Property of Bad People

For nearly two weeks, an esoteric debate has raged on X, formerly Twitter: could users concerned about privacy and security trust the messaging app Signal, or was the Telegram platform a better alternative? X's chatbot, Grok AI, described the trending moment as Telegram v Signal: a crypto clash".

Signal is an app for sending end-to-end-encrypted messages to individuals and small groups. Telegram offers broadcast channels and messaging but is not end-to-end encrypted by default. Debates over their relative merits have popped up over the years, though largely within the confines of online spaces inhabited by cybersecurity, cryptography, privacy and policy geeks. This time, the conversation came to broader attention - Elon Musk's following of 183 million - due to X's most notorious capability: mutating isolated facts into viral conspiracy theories for the entertainment of rage-riddled crowds. As a bit player, I got a ringside seat to the manufactured controversy.