Just days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Durov wrote that Telegram was "increasingly becoming a source of unverified information," and he worried about the app being used to "incite ethnic hatred." The next bit isn’t clear, but Durov reportedly claimed that his resignation, dated March 21st, was an April Fools’ prank. TechCrunch implies that it was a matter of principle, but it’s hard to be clear on the wheres, whos and whys. Similarly, on April 17th, the Moscow Times quoted Durov as saying that he quit the company after being pressured to reveal account details about Ukrainians protesting the then-president Viktor Yanukovych. Given the pro-privacy stance of the platform, it’s taken as a given that it’ll be used for a number of reasons, not all of them good. And Telegram has been attached to a fair few scandals related to terrorism, sexual exploitation and crime. Back in 2015, Vox described Telegram as “ISIS’ app of choice,” saying that the platform’s real use is the ability to use channels to distribute material to large groups at once. Telegram has acted to remove public channels affiliated with terrorism, but Pavel Durov reiterated that he had no business snooping on private conversations. And while money initially moved into stocks in the morning, capital moved out of safe-haven assets. The price of the 10-year Treasury note fell Friday, sending its yield up to 2% from a March closing low of 1.73%. 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.
from ms
