The creator of a social media platform with a billion monthly active users warned that the same country prosecuting him for speech on his platform pressured him to interfere in a European election.
Telegram CEO and Founder Pavel Durov said that France pressured him to “silence conservative voices” in Romania during a redo election for an election in which the anti-European Union candidate won. France arrested Durov in August 2024. He is facing up to a decade in prison and is currently only allowed to leave the country with special permission. Nevertheless, Durov turned down this reported request from his captors. In a May 18 post on X, Durov wrote, “I flatly refused. Telegram will not restrict the freedoms of Romanian users or block their political channels.”
A Western European government (guess which 🥖) approached Telegram asking us to silence conservative voices in Romania ahead of today’s presidential elections. I flatly refused. Telegram will not restrict the freedoms of Romanian users or block their political channels.
— Pavel Durov (@durov) May 18, 2025
After presidential candidate Calin Georgescu won the first round of the 2024 Romanian presidential election, the Romanian Constitutional Court cancelled the election, citing supposed Russian interference on TikTok. In response to accusations of election interference against them, TikTok partnered with a Soros-funded so-called anti-"mis- and disinformation" group to create an “Election Center,” announced it was working with 20 fact-checkers, and promised to cooperate with the Romanian media on a “media literacy campaign.”
According to Durov, European censors sought to neuter Telegram as well. “This spring at the Salon des Batailles in the Hôtel de Crillon, Nicolas Lerner, head of French intelligence, asked me to ban conservative voices in Romania ahead of elections. I refused. We didn’t block protesters in Russia, Belarus, or Iran. We won’t start doing it in Europe,” Durov explained.
The Telegram CEO also blasted both Europe’s censors and Romania’s Constitutional Court for their hypocrisy. “You can’t ‘defend democracy’ by destroying democracy. You can’t ‘fight election interference’ by interfering with elections. You either have freedom of speech and fair elections — or you don’t. And the Romanian people deserve both,” he wrote.
European censors have persecuted other social media platforms fighting global censorship, such as Elon Musk’s X and Rumble, whose executives expressed support for Durov on X. Musk offered a supportive response to Durov’s post, writing, “Here, here!” In response to Durov’s posts, Rumble CEO and Founder Chris Pavlovski explained that this type of government pressure is why his platform is no longer available in France.
The EU has repeatedly gone after X for allowing free speech, including the speech of President Donald Trump while he was running for office. When Musk spoke to German politician Alice Weidel, 150 Stasi-like government enforcers reportedly listened in to watch for violations of the Digital Services Act, the EU’s draconian censorship law.
Conservatives are under attack! Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
