Westerners tend to think that if we were to inform on our neighbors, it would be under duress or if they were doing something objectively wrong such as harming their children.
There is rarely a shortage of people who will trip over themselves to inform on their countrymen without any pressure or even much tangible reward other than some sort of status or a sense of "I'm doing my part".
As one Stasi recruiter said, " Well, some of them were convinced of the cause. But I think it was mainly because informers got that feeling that, doing it, they were somebody. You know - someone was listening to them for a couple hours a week, taking notes. They felt they had it over other people"
Westerners tend to think that if we were to inform on our neighbors, it would be under duress or if they were doing something objectively wrong such as harming their children.
There is rarely a shortage of people who will trip over themselves to inform on their countrymen without any pressure or even much tangible reward other than some sort of status or a sense of "I'm doing my part".
As one Stasi recruiter said, " Well, some of them were convinced of the cause. But I think it was mainly because informers got that feeling that, doing it, they were somebody. You know - someone was listening to them for a couple hours a week, taking notes. They felt they had it over other people"
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 company maintains that it cannot act against individual or group chats, which are “private amongst their participants,” but it will respond to requests in relation to sticker sets, channels and bots which are publicly available. During the invasion of Ukraine, Pavel Durov has wrestled with this issue a lot more prominently than he has before. Channels like Donbass Insider and Bellum Acta, as reported by Foreign Policy, started pumping out pro-Russian propaganda as the invasion began. So much so that the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council issued a statement labeling which accounts are Russian-backed. Ukrainian officials, in potential violation of the Geneva Convention, have shared imagery of dead and captured Russian soldiers on the platform. But the Ukraine Crisis Media Center's Tsekhanovska points out that communications are often down in zones most affected by the war, making this sort of cross-referencing a luxury many cannot afford. 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. The picture was mixed overseas. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 1.6%, under pressure from U.S. regulatory scrutiny on New York-listed Chinese companies. Stocks were more buoyant in Europe, where Frankfurt’s DAX surged 1.4%.
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