Anonymously Consume News Via Telegram Messenger
Feb 02, 2020


I've discovered an easy, practical way to read stories from major news outlets anonymously, and I wanted to pass it on to you.

First, let me say that I'm not 100% certain that this not a copyright violation.  And it certainly won't help the struggling news media make any money.  But for privacy loving individuals such as myself who are unserved by news media (unless we subscribe to the paper version),  its easy to see how people would find this a practical way to consume news.  Afterall, some of the worst offenders of our privacy are the corporate intermediaries who sit between news consumers and the reporters.  The Corporate intermediaries don't care if you are tracked, and they want to monetize you no matter what.

I understand they have to make money to bring us the news, but see how the entire online news media infrastructure has evolved to invasively monetize you as a product.

For example, when I visit nytimes.com, my Privacy Badger Firefox plugin identifies 16 different trackers that are loaded into my browser. The Washington Post loads 14 trackers.  But they both pale in comparision to CNN.COM, which loads 30 trackers.

As quality news has began to disappear behind expensive firewalls, even while the tracking of web visitors has increased... yeah, I can understand why someone would be interested in what I'm about to explain to you. 

I'm an Android user, so these instructions are most relevant to that platform.

Here we go...


First, go get Telegram Messenger.

Second, get the Orbot router for Tor.

Third,  start Orbot and add Telegram to the list of Tor-Enabled Apps.

Start up Telegram, and begin a chat with a bot named @chotamreaderbot (type @chotamreaderbot into the search bar and then tap on it).

Paste into the chatbox any link from a news article blocked by a paywall.  @Chotamreaderbot will magically download the article and display for you in Telegram.

Another thing you can do is to subscribe to Telegram channels for your favorite news organizations. 
I'm a fan of @TheWashingtonPost,  @latimes,  @TheGuardianNews and others.  I don't know if these channels are official or not, but they all use Chotamreaderbot to format news.  I think they pull from the RSS feeds of the news sites.  I don't know, and I don't care.

Of course there are some good RSS-based news feeds right here on Gopher. I encourage you to find those and use them as well.