Pavel Durov has used his birthday message to sound the alarm on digital freedom<\/p>\n
Western surveillance and censorship is\u00a0eroding digital freedom and is turning the internet into a \u201ctool of control,\u201d Telegram founder Pavel Durov has warned.
\nThe Russian-born billionaire has long portrayed Telegram as an outpost for free speech and privacy, contrasting it with what he describes as authoritarian censorship efforts by Western governments.
\n\u201cOur generation is running out of time to save the free Internet built for us by our fathers,\u201d Durov said in a statement on Telegram on Friday, marking his 41st birthday.
\n\u201cWhat was once the promise of the free exchange of information is being turned into the ultimate tool of control,\u201d he added, noting that nations once considered free are adopting authoritarian digital practices. He cited measures such as digital IDs in the UK, compulsory online age verification in Australia, and the mass scanning of private messages in the EU.<\/p>\n
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Durov said people have been misled by the West into believing that their mission is to dismantle traditional values \u2013 privacy, sovereignty, free markets, and free speech \u2013 and by doing so, society has embarked on a path of \u201cself-destruction.\u201d
\n\u201cA dark, dystopian world is approaching fast \u2013 while we\u2019re asleep. Our generation risks going down in history as the last one that had freedoms \u2013 and allowed them to be taken away\u2026 We are running out of time,\u201d he said.
\nDurov has long clashed with Western governments over Telegram\u2019s policies, facing fines in Germany for not removing \u2018illegal\u2019 content and criticism in the US for allegedly enabling extremist groups.
\nLast year, he was arrested in Paris and charged with complicity in crimes linked to Telegram users, but was released on bail. He called the case politically motivated. He later accused French intelligence of pressuring him to censor conservative content during elections in Romania and Moldova, and condemned France for waging \u201ca crusade\u201d against free speech.
\nDurov has also warned that EU laws such as the Digital Services Act and the AI Act are paving the way for the centralized control of information.<\/p>\n
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Last week, Durov reaffirmed that Telegram would never submit to political censorship, saying, \u201cI\u2019d rather die in jail than betray what this platform stands for.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pavel Durov has used his birthday message to sound the alarm on digital freedom Western surveillance and censorship is\u00a0eroding digital freedom and is turning the internet into a \u201ctool of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t