5/10/2023 0 Comments Telegram appPhotograph: Pavlo Gonchar/Rexĭurov is known for occasional eccentric behaviour – he once threw paper aeroplanes made from bank notes out of VKontakte’s office windows, causing fights in the street below, and he publicly offered Edward Snowden a job. Telegram is regarded as a safe haven for resistance movements. It is associated with being a safe haven.” It has very much been part of its reputation over the past couple of years as it has boomed. “This is another example of Telegram being linked to resistance movements. Jamie MacEwan, media analyst at research service Enders, said. “Double-check and do not take on faith the data that is published in Telegram channels during this difficult period,” Durov advised. Hours later, he changed his mind, following mass requests from users, who said it was their only source of information. “We do not want Telegram to be used as a tool that exacerbates conflicts and incites ethnic hatred,” Durov posted on Sunday. Last weekend, he said he was considering shuttering the service in the “countries involved” for the duration of the conflict. It has become the go-to platform for protest groups of all kinds, from Extinction Rebellion to anti-vaccination groups, from the US Capitol rioters to pro-democracy campaigns in states including Russian-allied Belarus, Hong Kong and Iran.īut Telegram’s role in the dissemination of unverified information alarmed the 37-year-old Durov – who has been called the Russian Mark Zuckerberg, after he founded what is still by far the country’s most popular social network, VKontakte (VK), in 2006. The app has been adopted as a leading source of news outside state-controlled media, and in the Ukrainian war it has become a 24-hour news lifeline for civilians, journalists and even the military. Russia gave in and lifted the ban in mid-2020. However, the crackdown, which included blocking IP addresses, was easy to circumvent, and the service continued to grow. Telegram was banned in Russia in 2018 after Pavel Durov refused to give the authorities access to its user data. The service’s much-hyped encryption and its ability to disseminate messages to groups of up to 200,000 – the limit on Facebook-owned WhatsApp is 256 members – has seen it dubbed the “app of choice” for terrorists. Telegram, which has more than 550 million monthly users globally, is already Ukraine’s most popular messaging app. A video grab of the defiant message Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy sent on Telegram.
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