In the United States, Telegram's lower public profile has helped it mostly avoid high level scrutiny from Congress, but it has not gone unnoticed. Messages are not fully encrypted by default. That means the company could, in theory, access the content of the messages, or be forced to hand over the data at the request of a government. Ukrainian forces have since put up a strong resistance to the Russian troops amid the war that has left hundreds of Ukrainian civilians, including children, dead, according to the United Nations. Ukrainian and international officials have accused Russia of targeting civilian populations with shelling and bombardments. 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. For example, WhatsApp restricted the number of times a user could forward something, and developed automated systems that detect and flag objectionable content.
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