Just days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Durov wrote that Telegram was "increasingly becoming a source of unverified information," and he worried about the app being used to "incite ethnic hatred." Soloviev also promoted the channel in a post he shared on his own Telegram, which has 580,000 followers. The post recommended his viewers subscribe to "War on Fakes" in a time of fake news. WhatsApp, a rival messaging platform, introduced some measures to counter disinformation when Covid-19 was first sweeping the world. Individual messages can be fully encrypted. But the user has to turn on that function. It's not automatic, as it is on Signal and WhatsApp. False news often spreads via public groups, or chats, with potentially fatal effects.
from id
