"And that set off kind of a battle royale for control of the platform that Durov eventually lost," said Nathalie Marรฉchal of the Washington advocacy group Ranking Digital Rights. "There are several million Russians who can lift their head up from propaganda and try to look for other sources, and I'd say that most look for it on Telegram," he said. On December 23rd, 2020, Pavel Durov posted to his channel that the company would need to start generating revenue. In early 2021, he added that any advertising on the platform would not use user data for targeting, and that it would be focused on โlarge one-to-many channels.โ He pledged that ads would be โnon-intrusiveโ and that most users would simply not notice any change. In the United States, Telegram's lower public profile has helped it mostly avoid high level scrutiny from Congress, but it has not gone unnoticed. Founder Pavel Durov says tech is meant to set you free
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