Since it has a public API, I can easily make a custom frontend if I ever want to. Most social media does not offer this or tries to lock you into their shitty ecosystem.
I basically just treat it as unencrypted, but the pretend encryption features at least puts the company in a position where blatantly selling data would be a liability. In this respect, I place it on the same level as WhatsApp. Because even if WhatsApp has solid encryption, all it takes is one forced update from Meta to undo all that. They are like the inverse of each other.
My uncle is the only one I know who refused to use Telegram, insisting Signal was better and because he didn't want to use something with vague connections to Russia. Yet even he did not actually use Signal, and simply insisted if we should all switch to something it's either that or he sticks to SMS. So well, when I couldn't sell Signal to anyone else, Telegram it is, sorry uncle, but Verizon is pretty transparent about how they sell all my data.