El Pais
By CRISTIAN SEGURA
Kyiv – APR 02, 2024 – 11:43CEST
Seventy-two percent of Ukrainians use Telegram as their main source of information. For 75%, it is also their first choice of communication tool, including hundreds of thousands of servicemen in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the president himself, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. These statistics were provided in 2023 by the Media Detector consulting firm and used by the backers of a legal norm that wants to place limits on the use of the application. The Ukrainian parliament, the Rada, has since last week been studying week a bill that threatens to shut Telegram down. The measure, which has proven very unpopular but has garnered the support of deputies from four political groups in the Rada, is based on the hypothesis that the Russian Security Services (FSB) have access to information about its users, and also on the fact that citizens can consult the invader’s media and Russian propaganda accounts.