After fleeing Russia, the brothers founded Telegram as a way to communicate outside the Kremlin's orbit. They now run it from Dubai, and Pavel Durov says it has more than 500 million monthly active users. Such instructions could actually endanger people — citizens receive air strike warnings via smartphone alerts. Telegram boasts 500 million users, who share information individually and in groups in relative security. But Telegram's use as a one-way broadcast channel — which followers can join but not reply to — means content from inauthentic accounts can easily reach large, captive and eager audiences. Update March 8, 2022: EFF has clarified that Channels and Groups are not fully encrypted, end-to-end, updated our post to link to Telegram’s FAQ for Cloud and Secret chats, updated to clarify that auto-delete is available for group and channel admins, and added some additional links. WhatsApp, a rival messaging platform, introduced some measures to counter disinformation when Covid-19 was first sweeping the world.
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