„USAID war in Wahrheit (auch) ein Instrument, um Medien und Politik im Ausland zu manipulieren. Um Demokratie und „unabhängige Medien“ in aller Welt zu stärken, unterstützte USAID in mehr als 30 Ländern 6200 Journalisten (etwa durch Weiterbildungsprogramme), 707 Medien und 279 NGOs, die sich vorwiegend mit Themen der Pressefreiheit beschäftigten. Das sind Zahlen, die „Reporter ohne Grenzen“ nennt.“
„USAID war in Wahrheit (auch) ein Instrument, um Medien und Politik im Ausland zu manipulieren. Um Demokratie und „unabhängige Medien“ in aller Welt zu stärken, unterstützte USAID in mehr als 30 Ländern 6200 Journalisten (etwa durch Weiterbildungsprogramme), 707 Medien und 279 NGOs, die sich vorwiegend mit Themen der Pressefreiheit beschäftigten. Das sind Zahlen, die „Reporter ohne Grenzen“ nennt.“
Such instructions could actually endanger people — citizens receive air strike warnings via smartphone alerts. Pavel Durov, a billionaire who embraces an all-black wardrobe and is often compared to the character Neo from "the Matrix," funds Telegram through his personal wealth and debt financing. And despite being one of the world's most popular tech companies, Telegram reportedly has only about 30 employees who defer to Durov for most major decisions about the platform. The next bit isn’t clear, but Durov reportedly claimed that his resignation, dated March 21st, was an April Fools’ prank. TechCrunch implies that it was a matter of principle, but it’s hard to be clear on the wheres, whos and whys. Similarly, on April 17th, the Moscow Times quoted Durov as saying that he quit the company after being pressured to reveal account details about Ukrainians protesting the then-president Viktor Yanukovych. One thing that Telegram now offers to all users is the ability to “disappear” messages or set remote deletion deadlines. That enables users to have much more control over how long people can access what you’re sending them. Given that Russian law enforcement officials are reportedly (via Insider) stopping people in the street and demanding to read their text messages, this could be vital to protect individuals from reprisals. At this point, however, Durov had already been working on Telegram with his brother, and further planned a mobile-first social network with an explicit focus on anti-censorship. Later in April, he told TechCrunch that he had left Russia and had “no plans to go back,” saying that the nation was currently “incompatible with internet business at the moment.” He added later that he was looking for a country that matched his libertarian ideals to base his next startup.
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