Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, has said that the app has “never disclosed a single byte of private messages” to any third party in its 12-year history. His statement comes as he and Telegram face ongoing legal issues in France over the platform’s alleged lack of cooperation with criminal investigations. Durov also said that Telegram only shares limited information like IP addresses and phone numbers of criminal suspects when required under valid legal requests, but not private message content.

BREAKING: @telegram CEO @durov ANNOUNCES THAT GRAM WALLET IN TELEGRAM IS READY AND IS NOW ACCESSIBLE TO A SELECT GROUP OF USERS - “WE’LL BE GRADUALLY ROLLING IT OUT TO OUR BILLION+ USERS OVER THE NEXT COUPLE OF WEEKS”

🚨BREAKING: Telegram CEO Pavel Durov says Governments are targeting the platform after it refused “secret political demands.” Durov says Telegram has been “quietly asked to grant political favors, such as illegal censorship or surveillance” across multiple countries, and claims that refusing those demands has been followed by coordinated campaigns portraying Telegram as a “cesspool of crime.” He argues Telegram’s moderation is “no worse than that of other major platforms” and questioned whether the ongoing French investigation against him is political, saying it “certainly fits the pattern we see elsewhere.”

Telegram's Durov faces French investigators for a fourth time Pavel @durov spent more than six hours with French investigators on Wednesday, his fourth questioning as the criminal probe into @telegram nears its second year. At issue: whether the platform let crime flow and refused to cooperate. France says Telegram facilitated illegal activity. Durov's team says two years in there's still no evidence, and calls it an attack on free speech. the-open-network:native, Telegram's token, barely flinched. The real question hangs over every open platform: where does the operator's liability end?

I'm fascinated with Durov's technique of multi-layered deception. It reminds me of the techniques used by scammers, politicians, and flim-flam artists of all kinds. If you pack half a dozen lies into every message, it becomes impractical for truth-seekers to untangle it. ⤵️