Oleksandra Matviichuk, a Kyiv-based lawyer and head of the Center for Civil Liberties, called Durov’s position "very weak," and urged concrete improvements. But Kliuchnikov, the Ukranian now in France, said he will use Signal or WhatsApp for sensitive conversations, but questions around privacy on Telegram do not give him pause when it comes to sharing information about the war. He floated the idea of restricting the use of Telegram in Ukraine and Russia, a suggestion that was met with fierce opposition from users. Shortly after, Durov backed off the idea. Individual messages can be fully encrypted. But the user has to turn on that function. It's not automatic, as it is on Signal and WhatsApp. 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