In the past, it was noticed that through bulk SMSes, investors were induced to invest in or purchase the stocks of certain listed companies. Messages are not fully encrypted by default. That means the company could, in theory, access the content of the messages, or be forced to hand over the data at the request of a government. Perpetrators of such fraud use various marketing techniques to attract subscribers on their social media channels. Telegram was co-founded by Pavel and Nikolai Durov, the brothers who had previously created VKontakte. VK is Russiaβs equivalent of Facebook, a social network used for public and private messaging, audio and video sharing as well as online gaming. In January, SimpleWeb reported that VK was Russiaβs fourth most-visited website, after Yandex, YouTube and Googleβs Russian-language homepage. In 2016, Forbesβ Michael Solomon described Pavel Durov (pictured, below) as the βMark Zuckerberg of Russia.β Andrey, a Russian entrepreneur living in Brazil who, fearing retaliation, asked that NPR not use his last name, said Telegram has become one of the few places Russians can access independent news about the war.
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