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. As a result, the pandemic saw many newcomers to Telegram, including prominent anti-vaccine activists who used the app's hands-off approach to share false information on shots, a study from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue shows. And while money initially moved into stocks in the morning, capital moved out of safe-haven assets. The price of the 10-year Treasury note fell Friday, sending its yield up to 2% from a March closing low of 1.73%. False news often spreads via public groups, or chats, with potentially fatal effects. Now safely in France with his spouse and three of his children, Kliuchnikov scrolls through Telegram to learn about the devastation happening in his home country.
from sa