At its heart, Telegram is little more than a messaging app like WhatsApp or Signal. But it also offers open channels that enable a single user, or a group of users, to communicate with large numbers in a method similar to a Twitter account. This has proven to be both a blessing and a curse for Telegram and its users, since these channels can be used for both good and ill. Right now, as Wired reports, the app is a key way for Ukrainians to receive updates from the government during the invasion. For Oleksandra Tsekhanovska, head of the Hybrid Warfare Analytical Group at the Kyiv-based Ukraine Crisis Media Center, the effects are both near- and far-reaching. Artem Kliuchnikov and his family fled Ukraine just days before the Russian invasion. Under the Sebi Act, the regulator has the power to carry out search and seizure of books, registers, documents including electronics and digital devices from any person associated with the securities market. 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.
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