As the war in Ukraine rages, the messaging app Telegram has emerged as the go-to place for unfiltered live war updates for both Ukrainian refugees and increasingly isolated Russians alike. Given the pro-privacy stance of the platform, it’s taken as a given that it’ll be used for a number of reasons, not all of them good. And Telegram has been attached to a fair few scandals related to terrorism, sexual exploitation and crime. Back in 2015, Vox described Telegram as “ISIS’ app of choice,” saying that the platform’s real use is the ability to use channels to distribute material to large groups at once. Telegram has acted to remove public channels affiliated with terrorism, but Pavel Durov reiterated that he had no business snooping on private conversations. Ukrainian forces have since put up a strong resistance to the Russian troops amid the war that has left hundreds of Ukrainian civilians, including children, dead, according to the United Nations. Ukrainian and international officials have accused Russia of targeting civilian populations with shelling and bombardments. Now safely in France with his spouse and three of his children, Kliuchnikov scrolls through Telegram to learn about the devastation happening in his home country. For example, WhatsApp restricted the number of times a user could forward something, and developed automated systems that detect and flag objectionable content.
from hk
