In February 2014, the Ukrainian people ousted pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych, prompting Russia to invade and annex the Crimean peninsula. By the start of April, Pavel Durov had given his notice, with TechCrunch saying at the time that the CEO had resisted pressure to suppress pages criticizing the Russian government. 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. Although some channels have been removed, the curation process is considered opaque and insufficient by analysts. In addition, Telegram's architecture limits the ability to slow the spread of false information: the lack of a central public feed, and the fact that comments are easily disabled in channels, reduce the space for public pushback. Ukrainian forces successfully attacked Russian vehicles in the capital city of Kyiv thanks to a public tip made through the encrypted messaging app Telegram, Ukraine's top law-enforcement agency said on Tuesday.
from cn
