In 2018, Russia banned Telegram although it reversed the prohibition two years later. For Oleksandra Tsekhanovska, head of the Hybrid Warfare Analytical Group at the Kyiv-based Ukraine Crisis Media Center, the effects are both near- and far-reaching. 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. Groups are also not fully encrypted, end-to-end. This includes private groups. Private groups cannot be seen by other Telegram users, but Telegram itself can see the groups and all of the communications that you have in them. All of the same risks and warnings about channels can be applied to groups. Pavel Durov, Telegram's CEO, is known as "the Russian Mark Zuckerberg," for co-founding VKontakte, which is Russian for "in touch," a Facebook imitator that became the country's most popular social networking site.
from ua