Comment by codedokode

> vague connections to Russia

Vague only if you don't follow the news. Telegram has added "third-party verification" [1] around January 2025 which conveniently and accidentally coincided with time when Russian authorities made it mandatory to register social network channels having more than 10K subscribers (I was secretly hoping Telegram would instead hide the subscriber count). Such channels are required to add a government bot with high privileges for verification. Note that announce for 3P verification doesn't mention Russia at all and contains some unrealistic examples instead, like a fictional game "Great Theft Starship" channel verified by "Bug-free Agency". Who on Earth would need that.

But to be fair, the western companies are the same, once government hinted they need more control, the companies rushed to introduce face-based "age verification" which allows identification. I would rather use some other body part for this.

[1] https://telegram.org/verify#third-party-verification