On February 27th, Durov posted that Channels were becoming a source of unverified information and that the company lacks the ability to check on their veracity. He urged users to be mistrustful of the things shared on Channels, and initially threatened to block the feature in the countries involved for the length of the war, saying that he didn’t want Telegram to be used to aggravate conflict or incite ethnic hatred. He did, however, walk back this plan when it became clear that they had also become a vital communications tool for Ukrainian officials and citizens to help coordinate their resistance and evacuations. Friday’s performance was part of a larger shift. For the week, the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq fell 2%, 2.9%, and 3.5%, respectively. The account, "War on Fakes," was created on February 24, the same day Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a "special military operation" and troops began invading Ukraine. The page is rife with disinformation, according to The Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, which studies digital extremism and published a report examining the channel. 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. Artem Kliuchnikov and his family fled Ukraine just days before the Russian invasion.
from tw
