Dubai Telegraph - Telegram booms as Russia's digital landscape shrinks

EUR -
AED 3.849071
AFN 71.56307
ALL 98.465648
AMD 409.468215
ANG 1.893231
AOA 955.718831
ARS 1054.749619
AUD 1.614472
AWG 1.886288
AZN 1.782519
BAM 1.960492
BBD 2.120976
BDT 125.530419
BGN 1.955562
BHD 0.394986
BIF 3103.196944
BMD 1.047938
BND 1.415574
BOB 7.285435
BRL 6.079039
BSD 1.050514
BTN 88.559806
BWP 14.350343
BYN 3.437727
BYR 20539.583235
BZD 2.117468
CAD 1.478023
CDF 3007.581455
CHF 0.929259
CLF 0.037074
CLP 1022.998268
CNY 7.586809
CNH 7.612525
COP 4594.945795
CRC 535.319825
CUC 1.047938
CUP 27.770355
CVE 110.527404
CZK 25.320383
DJF 187.057666
DKK 7.458693
DOP 63.30425
DZD 140.071563
EGP 51.976684
ERN 15.719069
ETB 130.985724
FJD 2.385055
FKP 0.827155
GBP 0.834903
GEL 2.860704
GGP 0.827155
GHS 16.544594
GIP 0.827155
GMD 74.40381
GNF 9052.578203
GTQ 8.111179
GYD 219.775967
HKD 8.155697
HNL 26.545275
HRK 7.475213
HTG 137.878655
HUF 410.760113
IDR 16678.246381
ILS 3.821337
IMP 0.827155
INR 88.337079
IQD 1376.09326
IRR 44105.092296
ISK 145.129213
JEP 0.827155
JMD 166.717396
JOD 0.743407
JPY 161.017234
KES 135.70087
KGS 90.949906
KHR 4216.049598
KMF 491.430873
KPW 943.143731
KRW 1465.744813
KWD 0.322524
KYD 0.875395
KZT 524.545339
LAK 23070.211523
LBP 94069.025555
LKR 305.681556
LRD 189.077086
LSL 18.992854
LTL 3.094288
LVL 0.633887
LYD 5.141304
MAD 10.554058
MDL 19.202956
MGA 4908.747592
MKD 61.56337
MMK 3403.661487
MNT 3560.892996
MOP 8.418247
MRU 41.772186
MUR 49.588583
MVR 16.191014
MWK 1821.559347
MXN 21.56301
MYR 4.679056
MZN 66.935227
NAD 18.992854
NGN 1763.815703
NIO 38.652133
NOK 11.634516
NPR 141.698761
NZD 1.793324
OMR 0.403444
PAB 1.050514
PEN 3.978622
PGK 4.231643
PHP 61.81779
PKR 291.766354
PLN 4.315041
PYG 8184.587316
QAR 3.832098
RON 4.978336
RSD 117.014826
RUB 108.987644
RWF 1434.318918
SAR 3.935285
SBD 8.792818
SCR 14.272552
SDG 630.332048
SEK 11.536377
SGD 1.412348
SHP 0.827155
SLE 23.785419
SLL 21974.73918
SOS 600.330981
SRD 37.195469
STD 21690.199169
SVC 9.191998
SYP 2632.975314
SZL 18.987441
THB 36.352603
TJS 11.197577
TMT 3.678262
TND 3.331979
TOP 2.45438
TRY 36.278175
TTD 7.135076
TWD 34.036696
TZS 2777.035195
UAH 43.594831
UGX 3892.31507
USD 1.047938
UYU 44.775876
UZS 13476.251302
VES 48.817455
VND 26630.722396
VUV 124.413296
WST 2.925414
XAF 657.52431
XAG 0.034524
XAU 0.000399
XCD 2.832105
XDR 0.803523
XOF 657.530599
XPF 119.331742
YER 261.905872
ZAR 18.978345
ZMK 9432.70014
ZMW 28.966322
ZWL 337.435583
  • RIO

    0.6300

    62.98

    +1%

  • CMSC

    0.0578

    24.73

    +0.23%

  • SCS

    0.4500

    13.72

    +3.28%

  • CMSD

    0.1200

    24.58

    +0.49%

  • BCC

    8.7200

    152.5

    +5.72%

  • BTI

    -0.0500

    37.33

    -0.13%

  • BCE

    0.2500

    27.02

    +0.93%

  • JRI

    0.1600

    13.37

    +1.2%

  • RBGPF

    0.8100

    61

    +1.33%

  • GSK

    0.1900

    34.15

    +0.56%

  • RYCEF

    0.0200

    6.79

    +0.29%

  • VOD

    0.1800

    8.91

    +2.02%

  • BP

    -0.4000

    29.32

    -1.36%

  • NGG

    0.1500

    63.26

    +0.24%

  • RELX

    -0.1800

    46.57

    -0.39%

  • AZN

    0.7700

    66.4

    +1.16%

Telegram booms as Russia's digital landscape shrinks
Telegram booms as Russia's digital landscape shrinks

Telegram booms as Russia's digital landscape shrinks

The Telegram messaging app has become a go-to platform since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, despite concerns over its data security and defenses against misinformation.

Text size:

It has benefitted from the gap left by Russia's blocking of Facebook and Instagram, offering a platform for mass messaging in a way similar to social media.

The platform also provides one of the last windows on Russia, but also an open channel to the horrors facing an under siege Ukraine.

"Our main hope is connected with Telegram channel," Galina Timchenko, director of the independent news site Meduza that Russia has moved to block, told the Committee to Protect Journalists.

According to daily figures provided by Telegram, the app has been downloaded over 150 million times since the beginning of the year, with the official figure of half a billion active users dating back to January 2021.

Prior to Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, Telegram benefitted from not using the same economic model of the big American platforms that generate revenue with data on their users.

Downloads jumped in 2021 when a report from ProPublica investigative journalists claimed that Facebook teams were viewing messages sent via WhatsApp, contrary to company assurances.

At the same time, Telegram has benefitted from the image of its creators, brothers Pavel and Nikolai Durov, Russian citizens who left their home country in 2014.

Under pressure from the authorities, Nikolai sold his stake in VK, which he had created, rather than hand over the personal data of activists to the government.

"Telegram is now a very nice revenge story, and we all love a good revenge story," said Enrique Dans, a professor specializing in information systems at the IE Business School in Madrid.

"Will that be enough to make Telegram the world's favorite messaging app? That's a whole lot to say. The app still has a lot of things to demonstrate in areas such as security, encryption and business model," he added.

While the platform run from Dubai claims to be secure, it does not encrypt messages by default, as does the Meta owned WhatsApp says it does.

In addition, "Telegram's profile has grown enormously in recent weeks, and that has raised the stakes about the impact of misinformation on the platform, said Jamie MacEwan, a media analyst at Enders Analysis.

Messaging platforms in general have long faced criticism over their capacity to combat misinformation.

Contacted by AFP, Telegram said it employs "several hundred professional moderators to keep the platform safe for users", a team that is "constantly growing".

"Meta employs tens of thousands of moderators and huge problems still slip through the net," said MacEwan, "It is unclear how much investment in moderation Telegram can support on its current funding model."

The company's model was fully funded by Pavel Durov until 2018, before raising $1.7 billion from investors, with the hope of launching its own cryptocurrency and becoming an alternative to Visa and Mastercard.

But the project fell through due to lack of regulatory approval in the United States, and the company repaid most of the funds.

Entirely free, Telegram started advertising last year, but with a reduced, highly regulated offering, and guaranteeing that it would not use users' private data for targeting.

In April 2021, the Russian business daily Vedomosti reported that the company was preparing to go public in 2023, and was aiming for a valuation of between $30 billion and $50 billion.

"The value that Telegram could eventually reach if it goes public depends strongly on its monetization strategy and Durov has not been very clear on that yet," said Dans.

Z.W.Varughese--DT