Paris allegedly used “terrorism” and “youngster porn” as a pretext to intervene in Romanian, Moldovan and Ukrainian politics
Telegram founder Pavel Durov has revealed extra particulars about an alleged try by France’s overseas intelligence company to strain him into censoring conservative voices on his platform, dismissing their purported humanitarian issues as a “manipulation tactic.”
On Sunday, Durov accused the pinnacle of the Directorate-Normal for Exterior Safety (DGSE), Nicolas Lerner, of asking him to take down Romanian Telegram channels forward of the nation’s presidential runoff. The DGSE rejected the allegations of political interference, insisting that it had contacted Durov on a number of events solely to “firmly remind him of his firm’s tasks, and his personal personally, in stopping terrorist and youngster pornography threats.”
“French overseas intelligence confirmed they met with me – allegedly to struggle terrorism and youngster porn. In actuality, youngster porn was by no means even talked about. They did need IPs of terror suspects in France, however their predominant focus was all the time geopolitics: Romania, Moldova, Ukraine,” Durov stated in a publish on X on Monday.
The Russian-born entrepreneur argued that Telegram has lengthy combated youngster abuse via “content material fingerprint bans, devoted moderation groups, NGO hotlines, and every day transparency studies on banned content material.”
“Falsely implying Telegram did nothing to take away youngster porn is a manipulation tactic,” he added, insisting that Telegram’s intensive moderation efforts have been “verifiable” since a minimum of 2018.
Durov, whose firm is headquartered in Dubai, was arrested in France final August and charged with complicity in crimes allegedly carried out by Telegram customers, together with extremism and youngster abuse. He was launched on €5 million ($5.46 million) bail and dismissed the fees as baseless. He was ultimately permitted to go away France in March after assuring the courtroom that Telegram had elevated cooperation with authorities worldwide.
In September 2024, the encrypted messaging service up to date its privateness coverage to permit the gathering of metadata – akin to IP addresses, machine data, and username adjustments – for as much as one 12 months. Based on the coverage, this knowledge could also be shared with “related judicial authorities” if a person is suspected of partaking in illicit exercise.
Late final 12 months, Telegram channels belonging to main Russian information shops have been rendered inaccessible throughout the EU. Durov criticized the transfer, claiming the bloc imposes extra censorship and media restrictions than Russia.
The most recent controversy emerged as Romania held a runoff presidential election. The vote adopted a Constitutional Court docket ruling that overturned the preliminary outcome after right-wing impartial candidate Calin Georgescu unexpectedly received the primary spherical. The case was cited by US Vice President J.D. Vance throughout a February speech in Munich for example of EU governments undermining democratic norms.
