On December 23rd, 2020, Pavel Durov posted to his channel that the company would need to start generating revenue. In early 2021, he added that any advertising on the platform would not use user data for targeting, and that it would be focused on “large one-to-many channels.” He pledged that ads would be “non-intrusive” and that most users would simply not notice any change. Just days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Durov wrote that Telegram was "increasingly becoming a source of unverified information," and he worried about the app being used to "incite ethnic hatred." Such instructions could actually endanger people — citizens receive air strike warnings via smartphone alerts. The channel appears to be part of the broader information war that has developed following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The Kremlin has paid Russian TikTok influencers to push propaganda, according to a Vice News investigation, while ProPublica found that fake Russian fact check videos had been viewed over a million times on Telegram. Perpetrators of such fraud use various marketing techniques to attract subscribers on their social media channels.
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