Since January 2022, the SC has received a total of 47 complaints and enquiries on illegal investment schemes promoted through Telegram. These fraudulent schemes offer non-existent investment opportunities, promising very attractive and risk-free returns within a short span of time. They commonly offer unrealistic returns of as high as 1,000% within 24 hours or even within a few hours. False news often spreads via public groups, or chats, with potentially fatal effects. On February 27th, Durov posted that Channels were becoming a source of unverified information and that the company lacks the ability to check on their veracity. He urged users to be mistrustful of the things shared on Channels, and initially threatened to block the feature in the countries involved for the length of the war, saying that he didn’t want Telegram to be used to aggravate conflict or incite ethnic hatred. He did, however, walk back this plan when it became clear that they had also become a vital communications tool for Ukrainian officials and citizens to help coordinate their resistance and evacuations. Lastly, the web previews of t.me links have been given a new look, adding chat backgrounds and design elements from the fully-features Telegram Web client. Multiple pro-Kremlin media figures circulated the post's false claims, including prominent Russian journalist Vladimir Soloviev and the state-controlled Russian outlet RT, according to the DFR Lab's report.
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