Founder Pavel Durov says tech is meant to set you free Stocks closed in the red Friday as investors weighed upbeat remarks from Russian President Vladimir Putin about diplomatic discussions with Ukraine against a weaker-than-expected print on U.S. consumer sentiment. "Your messages about the movement of the enemy through the official chatbot β¦ bring new trophies every day," the government agency tweeted. 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 Telegram boasts 500 million users, who share information individually and in groups in relative security. But Telegram's use as a one-way broadcast channel β which followers can join but not reply to β means content from inauthentic accounts can easily reach large, captive and eager audiences.
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