Durov assures that the Telegram messenger is not controlled by Russian special services (video)

The entrepreneur believes that rumors about the influence of Russian authorities on his platform are distributed by competitors, who do not like the audience of the annex, which is more than 900 million. In one of the few interviews in the last 7 years, Pavel Durov, the founder of popular social networks Telegram and VKontakte, spoke about the complexities of his relationship with special services in both Russia and the US, about the attitude to Ilon Mask and much more.

He gave an exclusive interview an American journalist, the former presenter of Fox News Taur Tair Carlson, who placed it in a video format on his YouTube channel on April 17. Durov spoke about where the very idea of ​​such a messenger came from. He first voiced the mission of this application - to allow people to express freedom of speech.

That is why Durov congratulated the purchase of Twitter by Ilon Musk as a supporter of freedom of speech, who is trying to introduce, in his opinion, innovations, in particular, into this area. According to Durov, when he faced safety issues when using communication channels and communication, he decided to develop his own encryption standard with his brother, which he base the Telegram.

The first conflict with the special services, as the owner of Telegram said, arose in Russia, when the government, including the FSB, appealed to it to provide personal data of the organizers of the Ukrainian Maidan in 2013. After he refused, he was offered a choice - to cooperate with special services or leave the country, having previously sold his share on the social network "VK".

According to Durov, he chose the second option and went to the United States, where he also could not quietly conduct his business due to the close attention of the FBI agents who tried to recruit key staff of his team. For example, during his last visit, US intelligence services tried to introduce the so -called backdoras - programs for hidden remote access through one of Durov's team engineers.

According to the programmer, he did not work with bureaucratic systems in Germany, the United Kingdom and Singapore, so he chose Dubai in the UAE, where he likes the simplicity of business, low taxes and developed infrastructure. "I try not to visit countries that are" great geopolitical players "(USA, Russian and China). The power of these countries shows increased attention to the messenger," Durov says, and emphasizes that all statements about his connection with the FSB or FBI is a discredit.

And categorically rejects rumors about Telegram controlled by the Russian authorities, who, in his opinion, are distributed by his competitors, who do not like the messenger audience, which is 900 million people. At the same time, as Durov assures, he did not spend on the marketing "no dollar", and the main problems of his social network see in censorship from the platforms Apple and Google. He generally believes that all his gadgets, in fact, are compromised in terms of safety and can be broken.

In an interview, Durov stated that he never dreamed of wealth, luxurious life, elite real estate, yacht and more. And he said that he still does not know what to do with those hundreds of millions of dollars that have been just lying in his accounts for 10 years.

The united Arab Emirates, where he has been living for seven years, is a rather politically neutral state, where he does not feel any pressure of power, but is able to hire people from all over the world and conduct his business openly and transparently. "The platform wants to remain politically neutral. The need to occupy some side is a big problem of the present," Durov says.