Such instructions could actually endanger people — citizens receive air strike warnings via smartphone alerts. Telegram boasts 500 million users, who share information individually and in groups in relative security. But Telegram's use as a one-way broadcast channel — which followers can join but not reply to — means content from inauthentic accounts can easily reach large, captive and eager audiences. Individual messages can be fully encrypted. But the user has to turn on that function. It's not automatic, as it is on Signal and WhatsApp. 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. Telegram users are able to send files of any type up to 2GB each and access them from any device, with no limit on cloud storage, which has made downloading files more popular on the platform.
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