Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov claimed that French intelligence providers requested him to censor content material associated to the election in Moldova in 2024 in alternate for saying “good issues” to the decide overseeing his trial, which he declined to do.
Durov stated the messaging platform initially took down some posts that “clearly” violated Telegram’s phrases of service, however declined to take away any further content material for political causes. Durov wrote in a Sunday Telegram post:
“Shortly thereafter, the Telegram staff obtained a second checklist of so-called ‘problematic’ Moldovan channels. Not like the primary, practically all of those channels have been legit and totally compliant with our guidelines.
Their solely commonality was that they voiced political positions disliked by the French and Moldovan governments. We refused to behave on this request,” he continued.
The crypto business rallied behind Durov following his August 2024 arrest in France, and the associated developments in his ongoing case, because the battle for free speech between tech platforms and state governments trying to impose censorship polices unfolds.
Associated: Telegram founder Pavel Durov says case going nowhere, slams French gov
French and European authorities beforehand requested Telegram to censor political content material
In Could 2025, Durov pointed to a earlier incident wherein French intelligence providers pressured Telegram into censoring Romanian election content, which he additionally declined to do.
“You possibly can’t ‘defend democracy’ by destroying democracy. You possibly can’t ‘combat election interference’ by interfering with elections. You both have freedom of speech and truthful elections — otherwise you don’t,” he wrote.
Following his 2024 arrest, which drew widespread condemnation from the crypto group and human rights activists, he turned extremely essential of the French authorities and the path of the European Union.
France is inching toward societal collapse attributable to state censorship and the failed insurance policies of the present authorities, he warned in June.
He additionally said that Telegram will exit jurisdictions, together with France, earlier than compromising person privateness by handing over encryption keys or constructing a backdoor into the messaging platform for state surveillance.
Durov’s repeated warnings about state-led assaults in opposition to on-line free speech and privateness got here to a head in 2025, when an EU proposal to monitor all chat messages, together with encrypted person communications, gained assist from 19 member nations of the EU.
Journal: Did Telegram’s Pavel Durov commit a crime? Crypto lawyers weigh in
