Telegram’s founder Pavel Durov accused French intelligence of attempting to censor Moldovan channels before a presidential vote

Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of Telegram, posted on X today, alleging that French intelligence services requested approximately one year ago—while he was detained in Paris—to assist the Moldovan government in censoring specific Telegram channels ahead of Moldova’s 2024 presidential elections. 

France has previously denied similar accusations made by Durov, asserting that there was no request for censorship regarding Romanian conservative voices ahead of elections, but has yet to respond to his latest accusations 

Durov implicates French clandestine services

According to Durov’s post, the request came via an intermediary and initially involved a list of flagged channels. 

As requested, Telegram looked into the channels flagged by the French (and Moldovan) authorities, identified a few that were in clear violation of its rules and promptly removed them. 

Durov said Telegram did it as part of its duty. However, he claimed that the intermediary then offered a quid pro quo: in exchange for even more cooperation, French intelligence would whisper good things about Durov to the French judge in charge of his August 2024 arrest related to Telegram’s moderation practices. 

This did not impress Durov, who described it as an improper attempt to influence the French judiciary or an exploitation of his legal vulnerability to sway Eastern European politics. He tagged it “unacceptable on several levels” and highlighted that the same pattern has been observed in Romania. 

“Shortly thereafter, the Telegram team received a second list of so-called ‘problematic’ Moldovan channels,” Durov wrote on X. “Unlike the first, nearly all of these channels were legitimate and fully compliant with our rules. Their only commonality was that they voiced political positions disliked by the French and Moldovan governments.”

Telegram refused to act on the request and will most likely not in the future, as the platform under Durov’s leadership has emphasized a commitment to freedom of speech and will not remove content for political reasons.

Durov ended the write-up by vowing to keep exposing “every attempt to pressure Telegram into censoring our platform.” 

“Stay tuned,” he wrote as if promising more bombshell revelations in the future. 

Durov has had regular correspondence with the French government 

At the time of this writing, French authorities have responded to Durov’s latest claims. 

The last time the founder made similar claims in May regarding how the head of France’s foreign intelligence agency demanded that he ban Romanian conservative voices ahead of the elections, France’s intelligence service, the DGSE, expressed denial. 

France’s foreign ministry also dismissed Durov’s claims, claiming they were “unfounded allegations,” and labeling them “merely a diversionary maneuver from the real threats of interference targeting Romania.”

It reminded the masses of how Romanian authorities had annulled the first round of the Romanian presidential elections due to Russian interference that helped far-right candidate Cătălin Georgescu win. 

He was ultimately banned from running again, and Romanian prosecutors later launched criminal proceedings accusing him of using social media manipulation and bots to spread misinformation during the pre-election campaign.

At the same time, the DGSE did confirm that officials indeed had meetings with Durov “on several occasions in recent years … to remind him firmly of his company’s responsibilities,” to prevent terrorist and child pornography threats. 

However, Durov has said that the secret service never brought up the child pornography issue and was more particular about “IPs of terror suspects in France” as their main focus was always geopolitics.

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