{"id":129492,"date":"2025-05-18T20:15:30","date_gmt":"2025-05-18T20:15:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/?p=129492"},"modified":"2025-05-18T20:15:30","modified_gmt":"2025-05-18T20:15:30","slug":"pavel-durov-rejects-eu-pressure-to-censor-romanian-election-content","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/?p=129492","title":{"rendered":"Pavel Durov rejects EU pressure to censor Romanian election content"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Source: Cointelegraph.com NewsTelegram founder Pavel Durov said he rejected pressure from a European Union (EU) country to censor political content on the social media platform ahead of the May 18 presidential elections in Romania.<br \/>\nAccording to Durov, a Western European government, which he hinted at with a baguette emoji, approached the platform and requested it censor conservative voices, which he flatly denied. Durov wrote in a May 18 Telegram post:<br \/>\n&#8220;You can&#8217;t &#8216;defend democracy&#8217; by destroying democracy. You can\u2019t &#8216;fight election interference&#8217; by interfering with elections. You either have freedom of speech and fair elections \u2014 or you don\u2019t. And the Romanian people deserve both.&#8221;<br \/>\nThe Telegram founder is an ardent defender of free speech, who is highly regarded in the crypto community for his stances on freedom of expression, autonomy, privacy, and individual liberty.<br \/>\nSource: Pavel DurovRelated: Pavel Durov says Telegram would exit markets before betraying users<br \/>\nDurov thrust into the spotlight following arrest in France<br \/>\nPavel Durov was arrested in France in August 2024, sparking widespread condemnation from the crypto community and free speech advocates worldwide, who accused the French government of orchestrating a politically-motivated arrest.<br \/>\nFrench President Emmanuel Macron denied the arrest was political while claiming the French government was &#8220;committed to freedom of expression and communication&#8221; in an August 26 X post.<br \/>\n&#8220;You can&#8217;t keep founders personally liable, and charge them up to 20 years, for not moderating speech, and at the same time claim you are deeply committed to freedom of expression,&#8221; Helius Labs CEO Mert Mumtaz wrote in response to Macron.<br \/>\nShortly after Durov&#8217;s arrest, Chris Pavlovski, the CEO of Rumble \u2014 a free speech online video platform \u2014 announced that he safely departed the European Union after France threatened Rumble.<br \/>\nThe CEO also criticized the French government for the arrest of the Telegram co-founder, characterizing it as an attempt to pressure him into censoring speech on the platform.<br \/>\nDurov maintains that Telegram complies with lawful information requests made by law enforcement officials and said that the company has a legal representative in France who handles such requests.<br \/>\nThe Telegram co-founder also criticized the French government for bypassing the legal representative and choosing to issue an arrest warrant instead.<br \/>\nMagazine: Did Telegram\u2019s Pavel Durov commit a crime? Crypto lawyers weigh in<a href=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/news\/pavel-durov-rejects-eu-pressure-censor-romanian-election?utm_source=rss_feed&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=rss_partner_inbound\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"feedzy-rss-link-icon\" rel=\"noopener\">Read More<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: Cointelegraph.com NewsTelegram founder Pavel Durov said he rejected pressure from a European Union (EU) country to censor political content on the social media platform ahead of the May 18&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129492"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=129492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129492\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=129492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=129492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=129492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}