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. Telegram, which does little policing of its content, has also became a hub for Russian propaganda and misinformation. Many pro-Kremlin channels have become popular, alongside accounts of journalists and other independent observers. Pavel Durov, Telegram's CEO, is known as "the Russian Mark Zuckerberg," for co-founding VKontakte, which is Russian for "in touch," a Facebook imitator that became the country's most popular social networking site. The next bit isn’t clear, but Durov reportedly claimed that his resignation, dated March 21st, was an April Fools’ prank. TechCrunch implies that it was a matter of principle, but it’s hard to be clear on the wheres, whos and whys. Similarly, on April 17th, the Moscow Times quoted Durov as saying that he quit the company after being pressured to reveal account details about Ukrainians protesting the then-president Viktor Yanukovych. READ MORE
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