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Telegram | DID YOU KNOW?
Again, in contrast to Facebook, Google and Twitter, Telegram's founder Pavel Durov runs his company in relative secrecy from Dubai. But the Ukraine Crisis Media Center's Tsekhanovska points out that communications are often down in zones most affected by the war, making this sort of cross-referencing a luxury many cannot afford. At this point, however, Durov had already been working on Telegram with his brother, and further planned a mobile-first social network with an explicit focus on anti-censorship. Later in April, he told TechCrunch that he had left Russia and had “no plans to go back,” saying that the nation was currently “incompatible with internet business at the moment.” He added later that he was looking for a country that matched his libertarian ideals to base his next startup. So, uh, whenever I hear about Telegram, it’s always in relation to something bad. What gives? On February 27th, Durov posted that Channels were becoming a source of unverified information and that the company lacks the ability to check on their veracity. He urged users to be mistrustful of the things shared on Channels, and initially threatened to block the feature in the countries involved for the length of the war, saying that he didn’t want Telegram to be used to aggravate conflict or incite ethnic hatred. He did, however, walk back this plan when it became clear that they had also become a vital communications tool for Ukrainian officials and citizens to help coordinate their resistance and evacuations.
from VN