Pavel Durov, Telegram's CEO, is known as "the Russian Mark Zuckerberg," for co-founding VKontakte, which is Russian for "in touch," a Facebook imitator that became the country's most popular social networking site. 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." Individual messages can be fully encrypted. But the user has to turn on that function. It's not automatic, as it is on Signal and WhatsApp. The regulator said it had received information that messages containing stock tips and other investment advice with respect to selected listed companies are being widely circulated through websites and social media platforms such as Telegram, Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram. Additionally, investors are often instructed to deposit monies into personal bank accounts of individuals who claim to represent a legitimate entity, and/or into an unrelated corporate account. To lend credence and to lure unsuspecting victims, perpetrators usually claim that their entity and/or the investment schemes are approved by financial authorities.
from ru
