As the war in Ukraine rages, the messaging app Telegram has emerged as the go-to place for unfiltered live war updates for both Ukrainian refugees and increasingly isolated Russians alike. Such instructions could actually endanger people — citizens receive air strike warnings via smartphone alerts. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) had carried out a similar exercise in 2017 in a matter related to circulation of messages through WhatsApp. Official government accounts have also spread fake fact checks. An official Twitter account for the Russia diplomatic mission in Geneva shared a fake debunking video claiming without evidence that "Western and Ukrainian media are creating thousands of fake news on Russia every day." The video, which has amassed almost 30,000 views, offered a "how-to" spot misinformation. Telegram was co-founded by Pavel and Nikolai Durov, the brothers who had previously created VKontakte. VK is Russia’s equivalent of Facebook, a social network used for public and private messaging, audio and video sharing as well as online gaming. In January, SimpleWeb reported that VK was Russia’s fourth most-visited website, after Yandex, YouTube and Google’s Russian-language homepage. In 2016, Forbes’ Michael Solomon described Pavel Durov (pictured, below) as the “Mark Zuckerberg of Russia.”
from ar
