MOSCOW, July 2. Telegram founder Pavel Durov dismissed reports that the messaging app is leaving Russia as fake news. He also confirmed that the app introduced a fact-checking feature.
“A few days ago, some Telegram channels published fake news that Telegram is leaving Russia. We even had to add a denial label under such posts in the Telegram channels,” he wrote in a blog post.
Durov mentioned that the news was originally meant as a joke in a satirical publication, referring to the Panorama news agency, but noted that the article was quickly reprinted by quite serious channels.
He also mentioned previous false news reports saying Telegram took down some open-source intelligence gathering channels in a politically motivated move. Durov said the Russian segment of the Internet was discussing a “technically illiterate investigation into Telegram’s IP addresses.” He suggested these developments were part of a smear campaign against the app.