Telegram founder Pavel Durov said in a statement on Thursday, July 30, that Russia’s decision to add him to its terrorist list was retaliation for rejecting demands for mass surveillance and censorship on the messaging app.
In a post on Telegram, Durov said, “Russia recognized me as a ‘terrorist’ because I rejected demands for mass surveillance and censorship on Telegram.”
Durov also said that, under Russian law, he was now banned from “disseminating information on the internet,” adding, “Russian officials appear to be confused about who can ban whom from using the internet.”
Russia’s Federal Financial Monitoring Service, Rosfinmonitoring, added Durov to its list of terrorists and extremists the same day. The move came after authorities accused Durov of assisting terrorist activities and began the process of placing him on an international wanted list.
Russia’s Federal Security Service, the FSB, accused Telegram of refusing to remove channels, chats and bots allegedly used by Ukrainian special services and extremist organizations to coordinate attacks and other crimes in Russian territory.