Its evolution and continued growth provides a glimpse of how the social media app has helped keep citizens up to date on Russia’s invasion with verified information during a time when platforms have struggled to handle a flood of misinformation and disinformation.Īs well as promoting official messaging, Ukraine’s government has also used Telegram to call for help from its citizens. On February 26, UkraineNOW posted 139 times and forwarded another 54 messages from other Telegram accounts before the invasion it posted three to five times per day. Its posts, which are shared by other channels, get around 8 million views a day. Now a million people depend on it for updates about the war. With nearly 500,000 members before Russia’s invasion, UkraineNOW was already one of the country’s biggest Telegram channels.
#TELEGRAM CHANNELS WINDOWS#
On Sunday the channel advised on ways to safely pass military checkpoints (“turn on the hazard warning light, no video recording”) and what to do if there are attacks on chemical processing plants (“close the windows and do not open them unnecessarily”). On Saturday, three separate posts in the space of just six minutes warned of imminent airstrikes across Ukraine (“air alarm: Lviv, Rivne ❗️❗️❗️”) maps showing air raid shelter locations were shared. “How to distinguish our equipment from the enemy?” UkraineNOW posted on Friday, sharing pictures of Ukrainian and Russian tanks. All of this unfolds in real time, with accounts posting hundreds of messages per day. And alleged videos of captured Russians sit alongside photos of babies born in air raid shelters. Disinformation rebuttals are peppered among requests to spot Russian saboteurs. Wartime propaganda is mixed with practical safety advice.
Their messages help keep people safe, debunk potential Russian disinformation, and counter emerging threats. In the days since the war started, WIRED has reviewed hundreds of Telegram posts from verified Ukrainian government accounts and politicians.
Since then the Telegram channel has shared the latest war news 24 hours a day-changing its display name to become an essential source of verified information for Ukrainian citizens. It asked whether members wanted updates on the latest “socio-political” news? People overwhelmingly voted for the change. Millions read the channel during the global health crisis.īut as Russian troops marched toward Ukraine’s borders, the channel responded. The account shared daily case figures, the number of people who had died, and the government’s latest health advice. Every day for the past two years, thousands of Ukrainians opened the official Covid-19 Telegram channel for the latest pandemic news.
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