He floated the idea of restricting the use of Telegram in Ukraine and Russia, a suggestion that was met with fierce opposition from users. Shortly after, Durov backed off the idea. Groups are also not fully encrypted, end-to-end. This includes private groups. Private groups cannot be seen by other Telegram users, but Telegram itself can see the groups and all of the communications that you have in them. All of the same risks and warnings about channels can be applied to groups. Given the pro-privacy stance of the platform, itβs taken as a given that itβll 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 βISISβ app of choice,β saying that the platformβs 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. Unlike Silicon Valley giants such as Facebook and Twitter, which run very public anti-disinformation programs, Brooking said: "Telegram is famously lax or absent in its content moderation policy." READ MORE
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