"And that set off kind of a battle royale for control of the platform that Durov eventually lost," said Nathalie Maréchal of the Washington advocacy group Ranking Digital Rights. He adds: "Telegram has become my primary news source." Russian President Vladimir Putin launched Russia's invasion of Ukraine in the early-morning hours of February 24, targeting several key cities with military strikes. In a statement, the regulator said the search and seizure operation was carried out against seven individuals and one corporate entity at multiple locations in Ahmedabad and Bhavnagar in Gujarat, Neemuch in Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, and Mumbai. 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.
from tw