Telegram’s CEO Blasts Orchestrated Smear Campaign

(MENAFN) Telegram’s CEO Pavel Durov has accused individuals or groups of orchestrating a deliberate smear campaign against the messaging platform, pointing to the rapid spread of false claims regarding the company’s policies and future plans.

The accusations surfaced after a fabricated story about Telegram’s departure from Russia made the rounds. Initially a joke by a satirical news outlet, the article was later shared by various news outlets, prompting Telegram to issue a formal disclaimer on its platform.

“We’re probably not dealing with innocent journalistic errors, but with a targeted campaign to discredit Telegram,” Durov wrote in a post on Wednesday, urging users to be vigilant.

The Russian billionaire also rejected allegations that channels aggregating publicly available data were shut down “for political reasons,” clarifying that “a few channels were briefly taken down by automated scripts” due to violations related to personal data publication. Durov emphasized that while these channels had been reinstated, several media outlets failed to report this development.

Durov further criticized a "technically illiterate investigation" published in June, which suggested Telegram’s IP addresses jeopardized user privacy and implicated the platform in connections to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB). He noted that while independent experts swiftly debunked these claims, such counter-narratives received far less media attention.

“For more than 12 years, Telegram has defended people’s right to privacy and free access to information, which is why we have often become the target of media pressure from various sides,” Durov concluded.

This isn’t the first time Durov has voiced concerns about a smear campaign against his platform. Last month, the tech entrepreneur, who is under investigation in France, accused a French newspaper of leading a similar attack. Durov alleged that the publication ran 40 critical articles about Telegram in just seven weeks following his August 2024 arrest at a Paris airport.

Durov, arrested on charges related to extremism and child abuse allegedly committed by Telegram users, was later placed under judicial supervision and released on bail.

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