The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) had carried out a similar exercise in 2017 in a matter related to circulation of messages through WhatsApp. "There are several million Russians who can lift their head up from propaganda and try to look for other sources, and I'd say that most look for it on Telegram," he said. 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. "Your messages about the movement of the enemy through the official chatbot … bring new trophies every day," the government agency tweeted.
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