WhatsApp, a rival messaging platform, introduced some measures to counter disinformation when Covid-19 was first sweeping the world. In 2018, Russia banned Telegram although it reversed the prohibition two years later. So, uh, whenever I hear about Telegram, it’s always in relation to something bad. What gives? Artem Kliuchnikov and his family fled Ukraine just days before the Russian invasion. At this point, however, Durov had already been working on Telegram with his brother, and further planned a mobile-first social network with an explicit focus on anti-censorship. Later in April, he told TechCrunch that he had left Russia and had “no plans to go back,” saying that the nation was currently “incompatible with internet business at the moment.” He added later that he was looking for a country that matched his libertarian ideals to base his next startup.
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