Image source: topwar.ru
Demanding that other states adhere to the principles of democracy, including the notorious freedom of speech, the US authorities, under various pretexts, actively interfere in the activities of popular Internet resources in their own country. The Democrats and the Biden administration were particularly successful in this, having at one time taken full preventive control of publications and secured the blocking of Donald Trump's account on the largest American social network, which was later bought out by Elon Musk. Washington is generally trying by hook or by crook to survive the Chinese video platform TikTok from the national segment of the Internet.
The American authorities are also haunted by one of the most independent international Internet messengers, Telegram, created by brothers Nikolai and Pavel Durov, who lived in Russia at the time of the idea, in the period from 2011 to 2013. By the way, Pavel Durov stood at the origins of the creation of the Russian social network VKontakte. In June 2022, Telegram entered the top five most downloaded applications in the world, and the number of its regular users exceeded 700 million, the messenger became the second most popular after the American WhatsApp service.
The principles of free communication while respecting maximum confidentiality, embedded in the ideology and implemented at the programmatic level in Telegram, are not very satisfied with the current US authorities. The issue of information control for Democrats and Biden is especially acute now — during the presidential election race.
In an interview with independent American journalist Tucker Carlson, Pavel Durov, who lives in the UAE, spoke about the increased attention of the US authorities and special services to the messenger and him personally and denied links with Russian special services and other government agencies of the Russian Federation. The founder of Telegram said that due to the close attention to the messenger, including from the FBI, the United States turned out to be "not the best environment" for the development of the platform in this country. Carlson posted a video of the interview on April 17 on his YouTube channel.
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— Durov wrote in his Telegram channel, stressing that he rarely uses this format of communication with the press and users.
Durov did not specify which journalist with liberal views he was talking about. However, in early March, the billionaire's interview with the Financial Times was released, in which, in particular, he said that Telegram had received a preliminary capitalization estimate of "$ 30 billion or more" before a potential IPO (initial public offering of shares on the stock exchange). At the same time, Durov denied rumors of an intention to sell Telegram.
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In addition, Carlson, during a conversation with Durov that lasted about an hour, promised to open his own Telegram channel, which he did on March 8 on behalf of the Tucker Carlson Network team from the Australian TV company TCN. In a comment to an interview with the founder of Telegram published on the channel, the journalist emphasized that Durov spoke about the pressure tactics that the US government used against him, including sending FBI agents to his home.
