“For years, it has been stated in various scientific, educational, and political centers around the world that the existence and legitimacy of Israel as the ‘only democracy in the Middle East’ is based on UN resolutions and international laws. Now, this ‘only law-abiding democracy in the region,’ by killing more than 41,000 Palestinians over the past year and conducting air and ground assaults on Lebanon, shreds the UN Charter at the General Assembly with a paper shredder and then bans the UN Secretary-General as an anti-Israel Secretary-General. Israel’s logic is the logic of Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union: whoever is not with us is against us. A clear example of a rogue state.”
“For years, it has been stated in various scientific, educational, and political centers around the world that the existence and legitimacy of Israel as the ‘only democracy in the Middle East’ is based on UN resolutions and international laws. Now, this ‘only law-abiding democracy in the region,’ by killing more than 41,000 Palestinians over the past year and conducting air and ground assaults on Lebanon, shreds the UN Charter at the General Assembly with a paper shredder and then bans the UN Secretary-General as an anti-Israel Secretary-General. Israel’s logic is the logic of Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union: whoever is not with us is against us. A clear example of a rogue state.”
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) had carried out a similar exercise in 2017 in a matter related to circulation of messages through WhatsApp. The account, "War on Fakes," was created on February 24, the same day Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a "special military operation" and troops began invading Ukraine. The page is rife with disinformation, according to The Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, which studies digital extremism and published a report examining the channel. Telegram was co-founded by Pavel and Nikolai Durov, the brothers who had previously created VKontakte. VK is Russia’s 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 Russia’s fourth most-visited website, after Yandex, YouTube and Google’s Russian-language homepage. In 2016, Forbes’ Michael Solomon described Pavel Durov (pictured, below) as the “Mark Zuckerberg of Russia.” Telegram has become more interventionist over time, and has steadily increased its efforts to shut down these accounts. But this has also meant that the company has also engaged with lawmakers more generally, although it maintains that it doesn’t do so willingly. For instance, in September 2021, Telegram reportedly blocked a chat bot in support of (Putin critic) Alexei Navalny during Russia’s most recent parliamentary elections. Pavel Durov was quoted at the time saying that the company was obliged to follow a “legitimate” law of the land. He added that as Apple and Google both follow the law, to violate it would give both platforms a reason to boot the messenger from its stores. To that end, when files are actively downloading, a new icon now appears in the Search bar that users can tap to view and manage downloads, pause and resume all downloads or just individual items, and select one to increase its priority or view it in a chat.
from fr
