Starting next week, Telegram is introducing the ability to limit the number of people who write personal messages to residents of Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus. About wrote Pavel Durov, owner of the messenger.
The option was added allegedly because of complaints from Russian-speaking users about private messages calling for terrorist attacks. Earlier, Telegram had taken «a number of technical and organizational measures to prevent this activity», which resulted in tens of thousands of such attempts being stopped and participants in the flash mob with the calls being banned for life.
«Telegram is not a place for spam and calls for violence», — Durov writes.
The messenger is also implementing artificial intelligence solutions to improve the efficiency of complaint processing.
Oleksandr Melnychenko, representative of the SBU Department of Counterintelligence Protection of the State’s Interests in the Field of Information Security said about the nature of Telegram’s activities, which allows us to talk about the messenger’s cooperation with censorship and punitive state institutions in Russia.
«We see clear cooperation between Telegram and Roskomnadzor and the FSB. When the FSB wants to block any channel in Russia, Telegram immediately follows these instructions».
According to a representative of the SBU, the agency is tracking the location of Telegram servers and there is a possibility that they are located in Russia. Ukraine, on the other hand, rarely manages to block channels «aimed at destructive activities».