Oleksandra Matviichuk, a Kyiv-based lawyer and head of the Center for Civil Liberties, called Durovβs position "very weak," and urged concrete improvements. The fake Zelenskiy account reached 20,000 followers on Telegram before it was shut down, a remedial action that experts say is all too rare. On Telegramβs website, it says that Pavel Durov βsupports Telegram financially and ideologically while Nikolai (Duvov)βs input is technological.β Currently, the Telegram team is based in Dubai, having moved around from Berlin, London and Singapore after departing Russia. Meanwhile, the company which owns Telegram is registered in the British Virgin Islands. You may recall that, back when Facebook started changing WhatsAppβs terms of service, a number of news outlets reported on, and even recommended, switching to Telegram. Pavel Durov even said that users should delete WhatsApp βunless you are cool with all of your photos and messages becoming public one day.β But Telegram canβt be described as a more-secure version of WhatsApp. Two days after Russia invaded Ukraine, an account on the Telegram messaging platform posing as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged his armed forces to surrender.
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