The company maintains that it cannot act against individual or group chats, which are “private amongst their participants,” but it will respond to requests in relation to sticker sets, channels and bots which are publicly available. During the invasion of Ukraine, Pavel Durov has wrestled with this issue a lot more prominently than he has before. Channels like Donbass Insider and Bellum Acta, as reported by Foreign Policy, started pumping out pro-Russian propaganda as the invasion began. So much so that the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council issued a statement labeling which accounts are Russian-backed. Ukrainian officials, in potential violation of the Geneva Convention, have shared imagery of dead and captured Russian soldiers on the platform. Founder Pavel Durov says tech is meant to set you free It is unclear who runs the account, although Russia's official Ministry of Foreign Affairs Twitter account promoted the Telegram channel on Saturday and claimed it was operated by "a group of experts & journalists." Also in the latest update is the ability for users to create a unique @username from the Settings page, providing others with an easy way to contact them via Search or their t.me/username link without sharing their phone number. There was another possible development: Reuters also reported that Ukraine said that Belarus could soon join the invasion of Ukraine. However, the AFP, citing a Pentagon official, said the U.S. hasn’t yet seen evidence that Belarusian troops are in Ukraine.
from vn
