"Russians are really disconnected from the reality of what happening to their country," Andrey said. "So Telegram has become essential for understanding what's going on to the Russian-speaking world." In 2018, Russia banned Telegram although it reversed the prohibition two years later. 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. He adds: "Telegram has become my primary news source." But because group chats and the channel features are not end-to-end encrypted, Galperin said user privacy is potentially under threat.
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