The perpetrators use various names to carry out the investment scams. They may also impersonate or clone licensed capital market intermediaries by using the names, logos, credentials, websites and other details of the legitimate entities to promote the illegal schemes. The message was not authentic, with the real Zelenskiy soon denying the claim on his official Telegram channel, but the incident highlighted a major problem: disinformation quickly spreads unchecked on the encrypted app. On February 27th, Durov posted that Channels were becoming a source of unverified information and that the company lacks the ability to check on their veracity. He urged users to be mistrustful of the things shared on Channels, and initially threatened to block the feature in the countries involved for the length of the war, saying that he didn’t want Telegram to be used to aggravate conflict or incite ethnic hatred. He did, however, walk back this plan when it became clear that they had also become a vital communications tool for Ukrainian officials and citizens to help coordinate their resistance and evacuations. Telegram was founded in 2013 by two Russian brothers, Nikolai and Pavel Durov. 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."
from ms
