Pavel Durov: French intelligence agencies have pressured for content review, and Telegram will commit to freedom of speech.

On September 28, Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, tweeted that "About a year ago, when I was detained in Paris, a French intelligence agency contacted me through a middleman and asked 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 middleman then informed me that, in return for the cooperation, the French intelligence agency would 'speak well' of the judge who ordered my arrest last August. This is unacceptable on multiple levels. If the agency did indeed contact the judge, it constitutes an 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 — a similar pattern has been observed in Romania as well." "Shortly thereafter, the Telegram team received a second list of so-called 'problematic' Moldovan channels. Unlike the first list, these channels were almost all legitimate and fully complied with our rules. Their only commonality was that they expressed opinions that the French and Moldovan governments did not like. 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." On August 25, 2024, Pavel Durov was arrested by French police after landing at Bourget Airport in northern Paris. The French police stated that the reason for Pavel Durov's arrest was the existence of drug trafficking, arms black market, and child pornography content on the Telegram platform.