"And that set off kind of a battle royale for control of the platform that Durov eventually lost," said Nathalie Maréchal of the Washington advocacy group Ranking Digital Rights. 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. The picture was mixed overseas. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 1.6%, under pressure from U.S. regulatory scrutiny on New York-listed Chinese companies. Stocks were more buoyant in Europe, where Frankfurt’s DAX surged 1.4%. "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. Some privacy experts say Telegram is not secure enough
from ms
