Multiple pro-Kremlin media figures circulated the post's false claims, including prominent Russian journalist Vladimir Soloviev and the state-controlled Russian outlet RT, according to the DFR Lab's report. 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." The fake Zelenskiy account reached 20,000 followers on Telegram before it was shut down, a remedial action that experts say is all too rare. 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. 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.
from tw