"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. Just days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Durov wrote that Telegram was "increasingly becoming a source of unverified information," and he worried about the app being used to "incite ethnic hatred." 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 “large one-to-many channels.” He pledged that ads would be “non-intrusive” and that most users would simply not notice any change. Founder Pavel Durov says tech is meant to set you free This provided opportunity to their linked entities to offload their shares at higher prices and make significant profits at the cost of unsuspecting retail investors.
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