Unlike Silicon Valley giants such as Facebook and Twitter, which run very public anti-disinformation programs, Brooking said: "Telegram is famously lax or absent in its content moderation policy." WhatsApp, a rival messaging platform, introduced some measures to counter disinformation when Covid-19 was first sweeping the world. Either way, Durov says that he withdrew his resignation but that he was ousted from his company anyway. Subsequently, control of the company was reportedly handed to oligarchs Alisher Usmanov and Igor Sechin, both allegedly close associates of Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Although some channels have been removed, the curation process is considered opaque and insufficient by analysts. Telegram has become more interventionist over time, and has steadily increased its efforts to shut down these accounts. But this has also meant that the company has also engaged with lawmakers more generally, although it maintains that it doesn’t do so willingly. For instance, in September 2021, Telegram reportedly blocked a chat bot in support of (Putin critic) Alexei Navalny during Russia’s most recent parliamentary elections. Pavel Durov was quoted at the time saying that the company was obliged to follow a “legitimate” law of the land. He added that as Apple and Google both follow the law, to violate it would give both platforms a reason to boot the messenger from its stores.
from jp
