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.” Asked about its stance on disinformation, Telegram spokesperson Remi Vaughn told AFP: "As noted by our CEO, the sheer volume of information being shared on channels makes it extremely difficult to verify, so it's important that users double-check what they read." "Like the bombing of the maternity ward in Mariupol," he said, "Even before it hits the news, you see the videos on the Telegram channels." "We're seeing really dramatic moves, and it's all really tied to Ukraine right now, and in a secondary way, in terms of interest rates," Octavio Marenzi, CEO of Opimas, told Yahoo Finance Live on Thursday. "This war in Ukraine is going to give the Fed the ammunition, the cover that it needs, to not raise interest rates too quickly. And I think Jay Powell is a very tepid sort of inflation fighter and he's not going to do as much as he needs to do to get that under control. And this seems like an excuse to kick the can further down the road still and not do too much too soon." Multiple pro-Kremlin media figures circulated the post's false claims, including prominent Russian journalist Vladimir Soloviev and the state-controlled Russian outlet RT, according to the DFR Lab's report.
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