Despite Telegram's origins, its approach to users' security has privacy advocates worried. WhatsApp, a rival messaging platform, introduced some measures to counter disinformation when Covid-19 was first sweeping the world. Stocks closed in the red Friday as investors weighed upbeat remarks from Russian President Vladimir Putin about diplomatic discussions with Ukraine against a weaker-than-expected print on U.S. consumer sentiment. Just days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Durov wrote that Telegram was "increasingly becoming a source of unverified information," and he worried about the app being used to "incite ethnic hatred." And indeed, volatility has been a hallmark of the market environment so far in 2022, with the S&P 500 still down more than 10% for the year-to-date after first sliding into a correction last month. The CBOE Volatility Index, or VIX, has held at a lofty level of more than 30.
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