MOSCOW: Pavel Durov, the founder of the Telegram messaging app, said Tuesday that the Russian government had opened a criminal investigation against him on charges of \u201caiding terrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n
Durov, who was born and began his career in Russia, accused Moscow of fabricating pretexts to restrict access by Russians to the Telegram service as part of an attempt to \u201csuppress the right to privacy and free speech.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA sad spectacle of a state afraid of its own people,\u201d Durov wrote on social media.<\/p>\n
Russian media outlets had begun circulating unconfirmed reports earlier in the day that a criminal investigation had been opened against Durov by Russia\u2019s Federal Security Service, or FSB.<\/p>\n
It comes two weeks after Russia\u2019s communications watchdog, Roskomnadzor, said it was restricting the Telegram app, accusing the company of refusing to abide by Russian law.<\/p>\n
The move triggered a rare wave of public outcry, including widespread criticism from pro-Kremlin military bloggers, who warned that Telegram was widely used by Russian troops fighting in Ukraine and restricting its service would derail military communications.<\/p>\n
However, Russian officials have continued to portray Telegram as a security risk. Digital development minister Maksud Shadayev told Russian news wire Interfax that foreign intelligence agencies could be reading messages sent through Telegram by Russian soldiers on the front line.<\/p>\n
When asked about the case, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday that the FSB had gathered information on a \u201clarge number of violations\u201d by Telegram, as well as content that could \u201cpotentially pose a danger to our country.\u201d He said Telegram had been unwilling to cooperate with the authorities.<\/p>\n
\u201cBased on this, the relevant agencies are taking measures they deem appropriate,\u201d Peskov said.<\/p>\n
Under President Vladimir Putin, the authorities have engaged in multipronged efforts to rein in the Internet. They have adopted restrictive laws and banned websites and platforms that don\u2019t comply, and focused on improving technology to monitor and manipulate online traffic.<\/p>\n
Russian authorities have targeted YouTube and imposed restrictions on popular messaging platforms, blocking Signal and Viber and banning online calls on WhatsApp and Telegram. In December, restrictions were imposed on Apple\u2019s FaceTime video calling service.<\/p>\n
While it\u2019s still possible to circumvent some of the restrictions by using virtual private network services, many of them are routinely blocked too.<\/p>\n
At the same time, Russia actively promotes the \u201cnational\u201d messaging app known as MAX, which critics say could be used for surveillance. The platform \u2014 touted by developers and officials as a one-stop shop for messaging, online government services, making payments and more \u2014 openly declares it will share user data with authorities upon request. Experts also say it doesn\u2019t use end-to-end encryption.<\/p>\n
Durov has faced criminal investigations elsewhere. In 2024, he was arrested in Paris over allegations that his platform was being used for illicit activity, including drug trafficking and the distribution of child sexual abuse images.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MOSCOW: Pavel Durov, the founder of the Telegram messaging app, said Tuesday that the Russian government had opened a criminal investigation against him on charges of \u201caiding terrorism.\u201d Durov, who was born and began his career in Russia, accused Moscow of fabricating pretexts to restrict access by Russians to the Telegram service as part of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":94245,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94230"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94248,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94230\/revisions\/94248"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}