I switched to Telegram as my main messenger in 2014 when Facebook acquired WhatsApp. Sitting in a car with my best friends, we frantically downloaded every messaging app we could find, desperate to escape Facebook’s prying eyes. Telegram stood out with a superior app and its unwavering commitment to privacy and freedom of speech.
For the past decade, I’ve closely followed Pavel Durov, Telegram’s founder. He is a rare breed in tech – a principled maverick who values freedom and privacy above profits and power. Born in the Soviet Union, Durov witnessed firsthand the soul-crushing conformity and censorship of centralized power. This forged his unshakable belief in individual liberty, which he carried as he built VKontakte into the Russian Facebook.
When the Kremlin demanded Durov to censor political opposition on VK, he chose exile over submitting to surveillance.
Durov understands that privacy is not a PR talking point, but an inviolable human right and the foundation of all other freedoms.
Exiled from Russia, Durov started Telegram, built on uncompromising privacy. With his brother – a genius mathematician – he developed an innovative encrypted social messaging platform that even sophisticated state surveillance could not crack.
Telegram’s robust proprietary encryption has proven secure and resistant to backdoors – unlike WhatsApp and Signal, which operate in countries where Telegram is banned, likely because they secretly plant government-ordered backdoors. Durov insists on controlling Telegram’s encryption to prevent this.
Pavel Durov doesn’t just talk the talk—he has consistently walked the walk, even when it meant standing up to authoritarian governments and corporate behemoths. Apple and Google constantly threaten to kick Telegram out of their app stores, unless it censors content they dislike. The FBI has tried to bribe Telegram employees to plant backdoors. But Durov never wavers. He understands that compromising on core values is a slippery slope to tyranny.
What impresses me the most about Durov is his long-term vision. He’s not just building an app – he is fighting for a world where technology empowers rather than enslaves. A world where individuals can communicate and organize freely. A world where truth emerges through unfettered debate, not centralized diktat.
During the pandemic, Telegram was crucial for accessing uncensored information. It was one of the only platforms that didn’t censor skepticism of lockdowns, masks, and vaccines. For this, Durov should be hailed as a hero of free speech. But instead, he was arrested in France today.
The cruel irony is inescapable — the man who built the freest space for communication in the 21st century has had his own freedom taken away in the land of “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité.” France, a country Durov admired for its history, culture and values, now treats him as a criminal. Meanwhile, he remains unmolested in the UAE where he resides, and in Russia, Iran, and China, whose authoritarianism he fled.
This is a disturbing sign for privacy and freedom in the EU. First it was Julian Assange, now Pavel Durov. The West is increasingly hostile to those who challenge the power of governments and Big Tech to control our data and decide what we can say.
As such, I vehemently demand the immediate release of Pavel Durov. If the West wishes to maintain any moral authority on the world stage, it must become a true safe haven for privacy and freedom. The persecution of visionaries like Durov is a giant leap in the wrong direction.
I call upon the EU to live up to its ideals. The EU should be a bastion of individual rights and data privacy. It should create an environment where innovators like Durov can build the technologies of the future that empower citizens, not control them. But this requires political courage to stand up to entrenched interests and misguided fears. If the EU fails to protect Durov, it fails us all.
The world needs Pavel Durov and more leaders like him in the fight for a free and open internet. His vision of a secure and private communication platform, uncompromised by authoritarian control or corporate greed, is essential for democracy to flourish in the digital public square.
As governments grow ever more invasive and tech giants ever more complicit, the future of privacy, free speech, and digital rights hangs in the balance. I stand with Pavel Durov, and so should you.