Writing on X on Sunday, Durov said the approach came about a year ago, while he was under judicial supervision in France following his arrest at a Paris airport. He claimed that intelligence services contacted him through an intermediary and asked Telegram to remove a number of Moldovan channels before a presidential vote.
According to St Petersburg native Durov, Telegram did delete some flagged channels that clearly violated its own policies. But he said the intermediary later relayed a more troubling message: French intelligence had offered to “say good things” to the judge in charge of his case in exchange for wider cooperation.
“This was unacceptable on several levels,” Durov wrote, adding that if the agency did contact the judge, it would amount to interference in the judicial process — and if it didn’t, it meant exploiting his legal jeopardy to influence political developments abroad.
Durov said that shortly afterward, Telegram received a second list of “problematic” Moldovan channels. Unlike the first batch, he insisted, nearly all of these accounts were legitimate and fully compliant with Telegram’s rules.
Hellbound and Down 