Telegram founder rejects alleged request to silence Romanian conservatives

Telegram founder Pavel Durov said on Sunday that he rejected a request from a Western European government—hinted at but not explicitly named—to silence conservative voices in Romania ahead of the country’s presidential election run-off, Reuters reported.

The vote features a contest between a centrist independent and a hard-right eurosceptic, and comes months after the first round was annulled due to alleged Russian interference. Durov shared the claim in a Telegram post, stating, “You can’t ‘defend democracy’ by destroying democracy.” He affirmed that Telegram would not restrict Romanian users’ freedoms or block political content.

France’s foreign ministry denied the accusation, calling it “completely unfounded” in a statement posted on X (formerly Twitter), and urged respect for Romania’s democratic process. Durov, a Russian-born tech entrepreneur based in Dubai, was briefly detained in France last year during an unrelated investigation and later released.