On February 17, in the article “Who are you, Mr. / friend Remi Vaughn?” InfoLight.UA research and analysis group raised the question of the reality of the existence of a person who calls himself Remi Vaughn and makes statements on behalf of the Telegram messenger.
So, we wondered why there was no publicly available photo or mention of a person with this name participating in a public event. At the same time, he sends relevant letters to the media and comments on events, including in Ukraine.
For example, this person commented on the security of the Telegram messenger.
We sent a request through the communication channel listed on the messenger’s official website and received a response. We publish both the original and our translation.
Hello,
Thanks for reaching out. I am Telegram’s head of press and media outreach and can confirm that the statement about Telegram being safe for Ukrainians was made by me (see the full statement below).
Telegram rarely participates in any events, rather focusing on our work – and for the few instances we do participate, Telegram is represented by its founder, Pavel Durov.
Note that this Press bot is verified and linked to through Telegram’s official press page: https://telegram.org/press#press-contacts.
Regards,
Remi Vaughn
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Telegram was specifically created to protect users from Russian surveillance. Its founder was exiled from Russia before the release of Telegram for protecting the data of Ukrainians. Its apps are open source and its encryption protocol is fully documented so any researcher can independently verify its integrity and implementation. Telegram is and always has been safe for Ukrainians and users around the world. Telegram’s founder spoke about protecting user data at all costs here: https://t.me/durov/179
original message.
Here is our translation.
Good afternoon,
Thank you for contacting us. I am the Head of Press and Media Relations at Telegram and I can confirm that the statement that Telegram is safe for Ukrainians was made by me (see the full statement below).
Telegram rarely participates in any events, focusing on our work – and on the few occasions when we do, Telegram is represented by its founder Pavel Durov.
Please note that this press bot is verified and has a link to the official Telegram press page: https://telegram.org/press#press-contacts.
Sincerely yours,
Remy Vaughan
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Telegram was specifically designed to protect users from Russian surveillance. Its founder was expelled from Russia even before Telegram was released for protecting Ukrainians’ data. Its applications are open source, and the encryption protocol is fully documented, so any researcher can independently verify its integrity and implementation. Telegram is and always has been safe for Ukrainians and users around the world. Telegram founder talks about protecting user data at any cost here: https://t.me/durov/179
Our request to the press service was as follows:
Recently, the Ukrainian media have published many reports on behalf of Remy Vaughn, who is called a representative of Telegram. However, we did not find any mention of a person with this name physically attending any public event on behalf of Telegram, so we assume that this could be a fake person or even a fraudster.
Please confirm or deny this assumption. Also, if this person is real, please provide a comment and a photo for publication in an article about this strange situation. We guarantee the publication of the answer without any edits.
We have fulfilled our promise. However, since we were not provided with a photo, we are using the one generated by the Leonardo.AI neural network at our request. We assume that Mr. Remi Vaughn might look like this.
We also believe that we have not received direct confirmation of the existence of a person with this name. At the same time, we are still open to communication with the messenger team regarding real refutations of our assumptions. They already know the editorial contacts.
