False news often spreads via public groups, or chats, with potentially fatal effects. In a message on his Telegram channel recently recounting the episode, Durov wrote: "I lost my company and my home, but would do it again β without hesitation." Artem Kliuchnikov and his family fled Ukraine just days before the Russian invasion. 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 channel appears to be part of the broader information war that has developed following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The Kremlin has paid Russian TikTok influencers to push propaganda, according to a Vice News investigation, while ProPublica found that fake Russian fact check videos had been viewed over a million times on Telegram.
from tr