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Юлия Андриенко. Донецкий корреспондент Telegram | DID YOU KNOW?
"The result is on this photo: fiery 'greetings' to the invaders," the Security Service of Ukraine wrote alongside a photo showing several military vehicles among plumes of black smoke. After fleeing Russia, the brothers founded Telegram as a way to communicate outside the Kremlin's orbit. They now run it from Dubai, and Pavel Durov says it has more than 500 million monthly active users. This ability to mix the public and the private, as well as the ability to use bots to engage with users has proved to be problematic. In early 2021, a database selling phone numbers pulled from Facebook was selling numbers for $20 per lookup. Similarly, security researchers found a network of deepfake bots on the platform that were generating images of people submitted by users to create non-consensual imagery, some of which involved children. Since its launch in 2013, Telegram has grown from a simple messaging app to a broadcast network. Its user base isn’t as vast as WhatsApp’s, and its broadcast platform is a fraction the size of Twitter, but it’s nonetheless showing its use. While Telegram has been embroiled in controversy for much of its life, it has become a vital source of communication during the invasion of Ukraine. But, if all of this is new to you, let us explain, dear friends, what on Earth a Telegram is meant to be, and why you should, or should not, need to care. On Feb. 27, however, he admitted from his Russian-language account that "Telegram channels are increasingly becoming a source of unverified information related to Ukrainian events."
Юлия Андриенко. Донецкий корреспондент from SA