France allegedly used concerns about “terrorism” and “child porn” as an excuse to meddle in the politics of Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine.
Telegram’s creator, Pavel Durov, has shared more details about what he claims was an attempt by French intelligence to pressure him into censoring conservative voices on Telegram. He dismissed their stated concerns about humanitarian issues as a “manipulation tactic.”
Durov stated on Sunday that Nicolas Lerner, head of the Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE), requested that he remove Romanian Telegram channels before the country’s presidential runoff election. The DGSE denied trying to interfere politically, stating that their contacts with Durov were simply to “firmly remind him of his company’s responsibilities, and his own personally, in preventing terrorist and child pornography threats.”
Durov posted on X on Monday that French foreign intelligence confirmed they met with him, supposedly to combat terrorism and child pornography. He claims that child pornography was never actually mentioned. While they did request IP addresses of suspected terrorists in France, their primary focus was on geopolitics, specifically Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine.
The Russian-born entrepreneur stated that Telegram has a long history of combating child abuse through measures like content fingerprint bans, dedicated moderation teams, NGO hotlines, and daily transparency reports on banned content.
He added that falsely implying Telegram does nothing to remove child pornography is a manipulation tactic, and insisted that Telegram’s extensive moderation efforts have been verifiable since at least 2018.
Durov, whose company is based in Dubai, was arrested in France last August and charged with being complicit in crimes allegedly committed by Telegram users, including extremism and child abuse. He was released on €5 million ($5.46 million) bail and called the charges baseless. He was eventually allowed to leave France in March after assuring the court that Telegram had increased its cooperation with authorities worldwide.
In September 2024, the encrypted messaging service updated its privacy policy to permit the collection of metadata—such as IP addresses, device information, and username changes—for up to one year. The policy states that this data may be shared with relevant judicial authorities if a user is suspected of illegal activity.
Late last year, Telegram channels belonging to major Russian news outlets were blocked in the EU. Durov criticized the action, arguing that the bloc imposes more censorship and media restrictions than Russia.
This latest controversy occurred as Romania held a runoff presidential election. The election followed a Constitutional Court ruling that overturned the initial result after right-wing independent candidate Calin Georgescu unexpectedly won the first round. U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance cited the case during a speech in Munich in February as an example of EU governments undermining democratic norms.