"The argument from Telegram is, 'You should trust us because we tell you that we're trustworthy,'" Maréchal said. "It's really in the eye of the beholder whether that's something you want to buy into." "There are several million Russians who can lift their head up from propaganda and try to look for other sources, and I'd say that most look for it on Telegram," he said. Perpetrators of such fraud use various marketing techniques to attract subscribers on their social media channels. For example, WhatsApp restricted the number of times a user could forward something, and developed automated systems that detect and flag objectionable content. In 2018, Russia banned Telegram although it reversed the prohibition two years later.
from cn