Pavel Durov: French Intelligence Agency Pressured for Content Moderation, Telegram Will Uphold Freedom of Speech

BlockBeats News, September 28, Telegram founder Pavel Durov tweeted, saying, "About a year ago when I was detained in Paris due to arrest, the French intelligence agency contacted me through an intermediary, asking me to help the Moldovan government review certain Telegram channels before the presidential election. After reviewing the channels flagged by the French and Moldovan authorities, we found that some of them clearly violated our rules, so we deleted them. The intermediary then informed me that, in return for the cooperation, the French intelligence agency would 'put in a good word' with the judge who ordered my arrest in August last year. This is unacceptable on multiple levels. If the agency did indeed contact the judge, this constitutes interference with the judicial process. If the agency falsely claimed to have contacted the judge, then it is using my legal situation in France to influence the political situation in Eastern Europe—we have observed a similar pattern in Romania."

"Shortly thereafter, the Telegram team received a second so-called 'problematic' list of Moldovan channels. Unlike the first one, almost all of these channels were legal and fully compliant with our rules. Their only commonality was expressing political views disliked by the French and Moldovan governments. We rejected this request. Telegram is committed to freedom of speech. I will continue to expose any attempts to force Telegram to censor our platform."